With 26 wins, the Mets are off to their fourth-best 40-game start in franchise history. Now, the excellent season has hit its first roadblock.
On Thursday, the team announced that SP Max Scherzer will miss six-to-eight weeks with an oblique strain.
It’s a massive blow to a pitching rotation already coping with the losses of Jacob deGrom (shoulder) and Tylor Megill (biceps). It’s also likely a frustrating loss for a front office that shelled out the highest salary in MLB history ($43.3M) for the three-time Cy Young winner.
However, this team is still built to win games without Scherzer’s dominance.
- As a whole, Mets pitchers rank sixth in both ERA (3.35) and WHIP (1.13).
- SP Chris Bassitt ranks 18th in the majors in both ERA (2.77) and pitcher WAR (1.3).
- Their +44 run differential is 2nd in the NL.
- 1B Pete Alonso leads MLB in RBI (36).
However, if the Mets struggle with their two aces sidelined for too long, they could always look for help outside the organization.
Texas’ Martin Perez and Pittsburgh’s Jose Quintana, for example, are both having impressive seasons on teams currently with losing records — and are both on affordable one-year deals.
Not that money is an issue for New York: The club boasts the league’s richest owner in Steve Cohen — and has “only” the eighth-highest 2022 payroll in the league ($187.1M).
