Let’s make this clear right now: it’s not Mets manager Buck Showalter’s fault that the team has underachieved at 31-35 as losers of eight of their last nine games. It’s not his fault his pitchers can’t pitch during this rut. We are not calling for his firing, either.
With that said, Showalter has to get the Mets out of this malaise. They have not played well in the first two months of the season. They have not executed at the plate, and they have not fielded well. They look like a dead team walking from watching them play. They find ways to lose, which is the story of their season. For a team that boasts a $370 million payroll, Mets owner Steve Cohen is not getting his money’s worth. Certainly, the fans haven’t their time’s worth from watching their team this year.
Showalter’s job is not in jeopardy right now. Cohen knows this goes beyond him as he mentioned the team’s pitching woes in an interview with New York Post’s Joel Sherman that was published on Sunday.
Still, the Mets owner knows what’s going on, and he can’t be happy the Mets took a 2-1 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates on his birthday Sunday afternoon to complete a futile 1-5 road trip. He paid Showalter as the highest-paid manager in baseball, and it’s time for that investment to start paying off.
No one says Showalter has to win a championship this year, but he has to get the Mets heading in the right direction again. That’s part of the job description of a manager. He has to get his team to play better. The Mets can start by cutting out the mental errors in defense and when they are on base. They need to start taking better at-bats rather than just swinging for the fences.
This is doable. The Mets have 96 games left. They can look at the Philadelphia Phillies, Washington Nationals and Atlanta Braves who struggled the first few months in recent years only to make the playoffs and win the World Series.
The Mets may not have the personnel to win the World Series with an aging starting rotation, but they certainly should be good enough to make the playoffs - after all, there are many playoff spots out there. They are three games out of a wild-card spot, so if they can get hot now or soon, they can rejoin the playoff conversation.
It would be nice if they can just get back to playing a pleasing brand of baseball. This means pitching well, hitting with runners in scoring position and fielding well. This would be an improvement over what we are seeing now. Once they do that consistently, the wins will follow.
The Mets can’t complain about bad luck when they haven’t created any luck of their own by doing things that win baseball games. The record they have is on merit. When the Mets' co-aces couldn’t protect leads or go deep against the Atlanta Braves last week, that isn’t bad luck. That is just incompetence.
Look, as bad as the Mets have played so far, all of this is fixable. We are about to hit summer, so the weather will be warm, which will get hitters to start hitting, especially Francisco Lindor and Jeff McNeil. Mark Canha seems like he is about to end his season-long slump. Eduardo Escobar is still valuable off the bench. You have to think Francisco Alvarez and Brett Baty will continue their trajectory as productive hitters.
The starters have shown they can figure it out. Kodai Senga has shown he can be a valuable starter. Scherzer and Verlander have shown they can dominate a game when they are able to find their location.
There’s some good there. What the Mets need is to put together everything that will win them games.
That’s why firing the manager does not make sense at this juncture. Firing Showalter would mean panic, and who exactly is going to get this team to figure it out altogether? It’s hard to believe an interim manager will just come in and get Scherzer and Verlander to pitch better. And stop with this Wally Backman fascination. He hasn’t been around the Mets to figure out what exactly is going on and change things just like that.
Showalter earned the right to lead this team to figure it out. After managing the Mets to a 101-win season in his first season last year and with over 1,600 wins in his MLB managerial career, he is the right guy to get this team out of the malaise. He has shown he can get it done in his career based on getting the 1995 Yankees back on track after underachieving for most of the season.
The Mets just need to get on a run here to get right back in this.
In baseball, a team is a hot streak away from getting back into the playoff picture. That’s the nature of playoff expansion where every team feels like they are in it. That was the purpose of MLB commissioners Bud Selig and Rob Manfred adding playoff spots throughout the years so that interest in baseball can be created in the summer and fall.
It’s time for Showalter to show the world why he’s the highest-paid manager in baseball and not allow this season to slip away. To start, he has to stop playing Daniel Vogelbach every day and also move Francisco Lindor down the lineup. Simply put, the team needs to play better baseball and Showalter has to ensure that they’re ready to go.
For the moment, he is in no danger of being fired, but if he can’t rescue the Mets from this quagmire, there’s no guarantee he’ll be managing next season - especially with David Stearns likely becoming the Mets president of baseball operations next season. Remember it’s the last year of Stearns’ contract with the Milwaukee Brewers and he’s serving in an advisory role.
Showalter knows the deal. He’s no stranger to the business of baseball, especially when a team has high expectations like the Mets.
With a few months to go, it’s high time he starts managing for wins.
You can read Leslie's Jersey Sporting News columns on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
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