3 takeaways from the Mets' series win over the Braves

3) The Mets still need to figure out who their seventh and eighth inning relievers are going forward. 

The biggest miss of the Mets season so far was not getting a left-handed relief pitcher, either before the season started or at the trade deadline. 

We still don’t know exactly who Edwin Diaz’s setup man will be, with several of the other relievers being shaky recently. The candidates would be Trevor May, who just came off the injured list, Mychal Givens, who has had two poor outings since being traded, Seth Lugo, who is not the same pitcher he once was, Drew Smith, who is on the injured list, and Adam Ottavino. Ottavino is currently the leader for the setup man competition, where he has been stellar at for the past couple of months. 

But nobody has really stepped up for the seventh inning role. As the Braves tried to mount some comebacks in three of the first four games, it exposed the biggest weakness on the team. It will leave a lot of “what-if’s” if the bullpen is the reason the Mets don’t win the World Series this year, perhaps forcing Billy Eppler to admit they needed to do more to address that hole other than acquiring Givens, contrary to his post-deadline commentary. 

But let’s hope Eppler won’t have to retract those remarks.