PHILADELPHIA – When you cover a baseball team these days, you have to get used to the fact that fans will overreact to the first week of the season. And 2017 was no different as all I heard was concern about the Met offense. I was hearing people lamenting the fact their power lineup seemed to be non-existent in the cold windy weather they encountered. My feeling has always been this lineup has power that will make noise on a consistent basis all season.
Last night, here in Philly, they crushed 7 homers—three of them off the bat of Yoenis Cespedes and for now I want to concentrate on him. This is a player who has proven time and time again his greatness. He put 14 Total bases on the board and only Edgardo Alfonso ever had a better game in Met history at the plate. He has shown time and time again he can carry this team on his back for weeks. But I have a newsflash for everybody—he has help this year with the bats of Jay Bruce and Lucas Duda showing they are more than capable of launching baseballs deep into the night.
And that’s the key for this Met team-depth all around the roster. We see it in the rotation, We see it in the bullpen. We see it on the bench. That is why this is a championship-caliber team. It has the core players but in a 162 game season, you need depth and the Mets have already illustrated that in the season’s first 2 weeks. Games like last night are rare but the concept it should drive home to Met fans is this team has the ability to make it very hard on the opposition because their pitching will do more with less. The problem the National League might have with that is there might be many a night where this Met team might power their way to a big lead and turn the lights out that way.
Met pitching coupled with power-a championship combination in every way.