4 Mets injuries and 1 other event that hurt the team's playoff chances most

No single moment cost the New York Mets a chance at this year’s playoffs. There wasn’t a blown save, a misfielded groundball, or a strikeout with the bases loaded. The Mets are headed toward a year of missing the playoffs because of multiple factors.

Four specific injuries and one other event can be blamed as to why the Mets aren’t fighting for a division title and are barely holding onto a shot at a wild card berth.

1) NY Mets losing Edwin Diaz in the WBC changed the bullpen plans

How much does a closer really matter when your biggest problem isn’t blowing games in the ninth inning? David Robertson was terrific for the Mets. It was almost as if they didn’t even need Edwin Diaz.

Why this matters is because the Mets lost what Robertson was meant to be—a top-of-the-line setup man. Adam Ottavino and Brooks Raley became the only reliable relievers in the bullpen in front of Robertson this year. Even Ottavino had stretches where we wouldn’t trust him to water a houseplant.

Diaz’s freak injury in the WBC was taken by some as a bad omen for what was to come this year. Moving everyone up a slot in the bullpen could have worked if only the Mets were able to have a few arms we didn’t expect to contribute perform well. Unfortunately, players like Tommy Hunter and Stephen Nogosek made the Opening Day roster but were DFA’d early. John Curtiss hasn’t been superb. Jeff Brigham wore out his welcome, too.

The Mets’ record might not be all that different if they had Diaz. Add in these other events and we begin to see a greater picture of why there won’t be a game 163.

3) NY Mets announcing an IL stint for Justin Verlander right before the season began took air out of the balloon

Justin Verlander was supposed to start the second game of the season for the Mets. Then he landed on the IL. He was shaky upon his return. One has to wonder if he would have come out guns-a-blazing if not for the IL stint to begin the year.

The story of Verlander’s Mets tenure had a whole lot of road bumps. From his slow start to the eventual gathering it all together and actually having a solid half-year for the team, a new roller coaster at Coney Island depicting his short tenure in Queens would be a thrill-a-minute. You must be this much of a diva to ride.

Potential locker room issues aside, Verlander wasn’t too far off from what the Mets needed from him. He ended with a 6-5 record and 3.15 ERA. Like Quintana, he was the victim of some poor run support.

Losing Verlander for about a month before the first pitch was thrown definitely took some air out of the balloon. It came after knowing Diaz would miss the entire year. Already, there were doubts about how soon we’d see Quintana make his Mets debut.

The duo of Verlander and Max Scherzer would have to wait. As it would turn out, it wasn’t a pairing good enough to make them contenders.

4) NY Mets pitcher Max Scherzer getting suspended was the start of a rough patch

A non-injury yet essential event that hurt the Mets was the Max Scherzer suspension. Caught with sticky stuff in a start versus the Los Angeles Dodgers, it was a moment that cost the team 10 games of seeing Scherzer. When he returned on May 3 as part of a doubleheader, the Detroit Tigers knocked him out of the game after 3.1 innings of work.

Whether or not Scherzer truly was using a foreign substance is up for debate. Dealing strictly with facts and no backstage gossip, he just wasn’t all that good for the Mets this year. The 9-4 record and 4.01 ERA in 19 appearances for New York this year wasn’t nearly enough. Verlander lost a couple of close games. Several of Scherzer’s losses got out of hand and the Mets had no shot at fighting back.

After the April 19 win over the Dodgers where Scherzer was ejected, the team was 12-7. When he returned. They were 16-13 when he came back. The rest of May was two steps forward and another two back. They ended the month 29-27. Then the wheels came off.

The loss of Scherzer to the suspension only meant two fewer starts for him and that doesn’t affect where they are in the standings today. It did seem to throw the Mets off their rhythm, including Scherzer who took another start to be anything like himself again. 

We’ll just have to take a guess as to anything else this suspension may have led to. Whether he was trying to gain an edge or not, Scherzer undoubtedly had to become more cautious as to how much rosin he used rather than face harsher penalties. The Mets were still very much alive by the time he did come back. This last event seemed to be the true killer.

5) The Pete Alonso injury and slump after his return was no coincidence

“Throw it again!” he shouted after hitting a home run. The quote from Pete Alonso against the Atlanta Braves. Alonso was pumped after hitting a home run on June 6 against the Braves. The Mets had just gotten swept by the Toronto Blue Jays, but stealing a series from Atlanta would have helped erase any ground they lost in the NL East standings.

The next day, Alonso was hit by a pitch from Charlie Morton. He landed on the IL for what was expected to be 3-4 weeks. The superhuman slugger was back on the field for the team’s June 18 game versus the St. Louis Cardinals. It may have been premature.

Alonso’s batting average dropped from .231 at the time of the hit by pitch to a low of .203 on July 19. He has raised it back closer to where it originally was. After all, he had already been struggling this year in every department other than home runs and RBI. Remove those first few weeks when Alonso was hitting .293 and this has been a strong tribute to Dave Kingman.

It’s no coincidence Alonso slumped so much after the hit by pitch. Did he come back too early? You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to believe so.

An honorary mention could go out to all of the injuries Starling Marte has faced this year. However, there never seemed to be one single event from him that struck the Mets down. Plus, who didn’t want to see Tommy Pham in the lineup every day?