Mets heading to the finish line with no confidence in the bullpen

The New York Mets bullpen situation hasn’t gotten any better even as the team has climbed into contention. The final two weeks will put them all to the test.

One thing has become apparent over the last few games for the New York Mets. Mickey Callaway no longer seems to trust Edwin Diaz in the closer role. We’ve seen Seth Lugo and Justin Wilson both get save opportunities. Meanwhile, Diaz’s role looks unclear.

It’s a shame it has come to this and it took so long for the Mets to unofficially announce his demotion. In a season where the team was set up well with a chance to use Jeurys Familia as the closer if all else failed, he too has put together a massively poor campaign.

Right now, the Mets are relying entirely on their starting pitchers and a combination Lugo and/or Wilson to finish it off. In Saturday’s win versus the Los Angeles Dodgers, this is exactly how it happened. Jacob deGrom gave them seven strong before Lugo entered for the eighth. Wilson came into the game for the final three outs, earning his third save of the year.

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The Mets bullpen has been discussed ad nauseam this year. Appropriately, it has made plenty of us nauseous to follow.

Unfortunately, this strategy of relying on Lugo and Wilson for the last six or nine outs backfired on Sunday when each allowed a run in their inning. This allowed Los Angeles to climb back into the game and ultimately win the game 3-2.

The final two weeks are obviously important for this team. Minus any typically reliable arm outside of Lugo and Wilson, it’s a mad dash to a playoff spot without much faith in the relief corps.

Robert Gsellman is hoping to return this year, but even his 2019 wasn’t so fabulous. Instead, this team will have to hope Brad Brach finds his younger self or Luis Avilan can find some consistency. The rest of the bullpen, which is made up of mostly Triple-A arms, inspires no confidence whatsoever.

A talented bullpen is essential to winning baseball games in 2019. This is especially true in October when starting pitchers are on the hook a lot quicker.

Fortunately for the Mets, they can survive this if this miracle ends the way we want it to. In the NLDS, they will only need three starting pitchers. We can expect to see two of their regular starters head to a relief role and everyone else in “all hands on deck” mode when they’re not on the bump.

Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves yet, though. First, the current relievers need to help get the job done.

It’s quite amazing that the Mets have gotten as far as they have with such unreliable relief help. However, the league’s worst bullpen as far as ERA goes this year belongs to the Washington Nationals. At more than a half-run per nine more than the Mets have allowed, they are in the same company as the tanking Baltimore Orioles.

The same negative sentiments cannot be said about other contending teams throughout the league. In fact, a good bullpen this year seems to almost directly correlate in a team’s success. The San Francisco Giants and Toronto Blue Jays are the only teams out of the playoff hunt either in or within reach of the top ten in Major League Baseball. In the bottom ten, the Mets and Nationals are the lone squads with October aspirations.

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There’s no solving this issue yet and it’s going to take a lot of heavy-thinking in the winter to ensure we don’t experience this all over again in 2020. For now, it’s a closer-by-committee with a hope and a prayer to get the game to either Lugo or Wilson for the ninth frame.