Studious Metsimus Presents The Happy/Crappy Recap For 2017

It's the end of another calendar year, Mets fans.  And with just six weeks or so remaining until pitchers and catchers report to Port St. Lucie, it's time to look back and reflect.  No, we're not reflecting on all the injuries that seemed to be Ray Ramirez's fault in the eyes of the fan base.  (Okay, maybe we'll reflect on one or twelve of them.)  We're here to share what was happy and what was crappy about the 2017 season.  And if you followed this season as closely as the Studious Metsimus staff did, you'll probably expect the "happy" part to be as long as a Jeff Wilpon interview and the "crappy" part to be of a similar length as a modernized version of "War and Peace".

You know what?  You may be right about that.

But despite everything that a 70-92 record might suggest, not everything was crappy for Mets fans in 2017.  We got to see the Nationals make another first round exit, which means all of Daniel Murphy's postseason celebrations continue to be with him wearing a Mets uniform.  We also saw the Yankees complete an eighth consecutive season without winning a pennant.  (Hey, we hadn't seen that occur in over two decades.)  And of course, future Hall of Famer Carlos Beltran went out as a champion, winning a World Series ring with the Mets' 1962 expansion mates a full 13 seasons after his epic postseason run with the Astros led to him becoming the greatest free agent signing in Mets history.

As Mets fans, we can take comfort that things other than the Mets can give us pleasure.  Sometimes it's all we have.  And with that, I think it's time to delve into this year's Happy/Crappy recap.  I promise it won't depress you as you read it.  After all, we wouldn't want you to end up wearing a leg boot because of a depression diagnosis.

So what was happy about the 2017 season?

(Crickets...)

Seriously, what can we look back on and remember as a good thing that happened this past season?

(More crickets, getting louder...)

Anything at all?  Bueller?  Bueller?

(Crickets quieting down, mainly because they're all shaking their heads...)

Okay, so it wasn't easy to find something to be happy about when looking back at the 2017 campaign.  I mean, the team needed a win on the next-to-last day of the season to avoid their first year with fewer than 70 wins since Art Howe's crew "battled" their way to a 66-95 record in 2003.

Everyone except Ray Ramirez got hurt at some point of the season.  I mean, Jay Bruce was traded to Cleveland with almost two months left in the season and still had the third-most plate appearances on the Mets.  Michael Conforto got hurt swinging the bat.  So did Wilmer Flores, who found a way to foul a ball off his face.  Both players appeared to be heading toward career years, as Conforto was on pace to hit 35-plus homers and Flores had already established career highs in home runs (18), batting average (.271), slugging percentage (.488) and OPS (.795) before the invisible magnet in his nose attracted a fastball off his bat.  Even Noah Syndergaard, who was expected to contend for the Cy Young Award, missed the majority of the season recovering from a lat injury.

Hey, but at least he got to woo Mrs. Met on Twitter as part of his all-out war on Mr. Met.

The injuries, as well as the selling off of the team's veteran players (and by veteran, I mean the guys who made the most money and were in the final season of their contracts), allowed the Mets to call up their top two minor league prospects, Amed Rosario and Dominic Smith.

Aha!  We've reached the bright side!

Rosario and Smith had flashes of brilliance, but neither took the baseball world by storm, as both posted OBPs south of .300 and OPSs under .700.  Still, Rosario just turned 22 last month and Smith won't be 23 until the anniversary of the Midnight Massacre.  And yet, some people are calling for Smith's days as a Met to be terminated before he's gotten a chance to prove himself.  Why?

The two neophytes combined to produce a .223/.266/.395 slash line, which isn't that for off from Noah Syndergaard's career slash line (.200/.273/.345).  That may not sound impressive, but consider the following.

Rosario gives the Mets speed they desperately need.  The swift Dominican finished second on the team behind Jose Reyes in triples and stolen bases.  If Reyes doesn't return in 2018, Rosario will be the only dependable source for steals and extra-base hits that don't come to a screeching halt at second base.  Plus, he'd be the best candidate to go first-to-third on a single.  Without Reyes and not including Rosario's totals in two months with the team, the Mets would have finished the 2017 campaign with 17 triples and 27 steals.  That's fewer than Lance Johnson had by himself in 1996 (21 triples, 50 SB).  Rosario should become the go-to guy to get the go-go signal from his coaches.

Meanwhile, Smith may have batted .198 with 49 strikeouts in 183 plate appearances, but he was an excellent hitter with runners in scoring position.  On a team that occasionally struggled offensively, Smith batted .283 with an .871 OPS when a teammate was 90 or 180 feet from crossing the plate.  That explains why he drove in 26 runs in those limited plate appearances.  In fact, he was more likely to drive in a run last season than the 110 Million Dollar Man, Yoenis Céspedes, as Smith averaged an RBI every 7.0 plate appearances, while Céspedes drove in a run every 7.6 PA (42 RBI; 321 PA).

All I am saying is give Smith a chance.

That was the good that came out of the 2017 season.  Now it's time for the bad and the ugly.  Can we have some orange and blue toilet paper, please?

Okay, we've gone over the injuries ad nauseum.  We've yet to discuss the pitching staff posting the highest team ERA since 1962, but doing that would just get us ad nauseous.  So let me tell you a story about something that happened with the one team expected to do worse than the Mets in 2018.  I'm talking about the Miami Marlins.

The Marlins have a new co-owner/CEO/gift basket giver.  To protect the not-so-innocent, let's call him Dirk Jitters.  Mr. Jitters was part of a group that purchased the team, then decided to enrage the dozens of Marlins fans in South Florida by trading the one player who made them come out to Marlins Park on a nightly basis; Giancarlo Stanton.  But faster than you can say "most overrated shortstop in the history of baseball", Mr. Jitters also found a way to trade slugger Marcell Ozuna and speedster Dee Gordon and is now supposedly looking to unload the contracts of Christian Yelich and J.T. Realmuto in this liquidation sale.

One can only imagine what he would have done with Jose Fernandez had he lived.

But Mr. Jitters did also something that was very unexpected.  He attended a town hall in which Marlins season ticket holders were invited to ask questions about the direction the team was taking.  Mr. Jitters calmly answered questions from the gathering of disgruntled fans, including Marlins Man, who left his seat behind home plate at a nationally televised road game to attend the meeting.

In doing so, Mr. Jitters was able to address the paying customers in person and made him more than just a guy in a suit with a closet full of gift baskets.  Which means he's already done more as a Marlins executive than the Wilpons have done with Mets fans.

Dirk Jitters has more balls than both Wilpons combined.

When was the last time you say Papa Smirk and Little Jeffy address the media or the team's fans?  They don't need to.  That's why they hired Sandy Alderson.  The Wilpons are the most hands-off owners in baseball except when someone wants to get their hands on their piggy banks.  To most fans, they're just urban legends as most of the team's supporters have never seen them in person.

The Studious Metsimus staff once attended a similar gathering of season ticket holders in 2013, which allowed fans to ask questions to members of the front office.  Alderson was there.  So were his merry men (John Ricco, Paul DePodesta and J.P. Ricciardi).  Who wasn't there, you might ask?

Fred, Jeff and Saul.

The Mets' owners once had no problems giving out money to the top free agents and to re-sign their own players.  They gave newly-retired world champion Carlos Beltran a seven-year, $119 million contract.  They traded for a guy currently on the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time, Johan Santana, then proceeded to sign him to a six-year, $137.5 million extension.  Then a con man "made off" with their money and apparently their public appearances as well.

As long as New York keeps signing low-risk, high-reward players for pennies on the dollar and get low performance and high injury rates from these players, the fans will continue to revolt.  They'll continue to come to the ballpark (blame the food) and watch the games on SNY (blame Gary, Keith and Ron), but they'll always be figuratively throwing darts at photos of the Wilpons.  Maybe not so figuratively in some cases.

With little chance of the club acting like a large-market team and with the owners continuing to avoid breaking open their piggy banks for a proven commodity in his prime (Céspedes notwithstanding), the fans might have to endure a lot more of the crappy before the happy returns to Citi Field.

And that's it for 2017.  For most Mets fans, the year couldn't come to an end any quicker.  For the cast of crew of Studious Metsimus, we're not ready to give up on the year just yet.  At least not until we thank those who inspire, educate and amuse us.

Respected and long-running blogs such as A Gal For All Seasons, Faith and Fear in Flushing, Mets Merized Online, MetsMinors.Net, Amazin' Avenue, Metstradamus, Remembering Shea, The Daily Stache, Mets360, Rising Apple, Mets Plus, Good Fundies, MetSilverman, Converted Mets Fan and Mets Daddy, just to name a few (or 15, to be exact) always have interesting stories to share, day or night.  Check them out some time.  I'd say "tell 'em Ed sent you" but I'm not sure all of them know who I am.

From all of us here at the corporate office of Studious Metsimus, which is quite literally a desk with a computer, an iPhone and a cat who swipes at us whenever we need to use "his" bathroom, we'd like to thank you for your continued support of this site and wish you a safe and happy New Year.  And by "we", I mean Ed Leyro (the dude at the computer), Joey Beartran (the roving reporter/culinary expert with the iPhone) and Taryn "The Coop" Cooper (the chick getting swiped by the cat).

And remember, Mets fans.  It's not how you play the game.  It's how much money you saved by not signing the top free agents on the market and hoping to get similar production from lesser players coming off a subpar season, then hoping to get a game-winning single from them once a month.  (This paragraph was approved by Fred and Jeff Wilpon.)

Hey, Dirk Jitters?  If you could get rid of this monstrosity in Marlins Park, you'd be doing your fans a great service.

Matt Harvey Could Make History, and Not In a Good Way

Looks like an Unhappy Harvey Day.  (Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

Matt Harvey's fall from All-Star Game starting pitcher to oft-injured, in-game batting practice pitcher has been well documented.  A year after going 4-10 with a 4.86 ERA and 1.468 WHIP, Harvey has somehow gotten worse.  Much, much worse.  In fact, if he doesn't show any kind of progress in his final few starts, he stands to make Mets history, and it's not the kind of history any pitcher would ever want to be associated with.

In 16 starts this season, Harvey has seen his ERA and WHIP go up to 6.14 and 1.574, respectively.  Should Harvey fail to lower his ERA under 6.00 before the end of the campaign, he would join an exclusive club.  How exclusive would it be?  Let's just say no one has been allowed to enter it yet.

Thanks to the baseball-reference.com Play Index, Pete Schourek and Matt Harvey can be mentioned in the same sentence.

Prior to Harvey's 2017 campaign, Pete Schourek was the Mets pitcher who came closest to posting an ERA north of 6.00 with at least 16 starts.  But Schourek's 5.96 ERA in 1993 was crafted as both a starter and reliever.  In Schourek's eighteen starts, he posted a 5.47 ERA, compared to the embarrassing 7.86 ERA he had in 23 relief appearances for the last Mets team to reach triple digits in losses.

Now if we only consider those Mets hurlers who made all of their appearances in a starting role, the closest one to Harvey is a another former ace whose career in New York was beleaguered by injuries.

What is it with guys named Pete or the Spanish equivalent of Pete and high ERAs?  Is Harvey secretly a Pete in disguise?

Harvey is not the only Mets starter this season to suffer from injuries, poor performance or a combination of the two.  Zack Wheeler had a 5.21 ERA in 17 starts before injuries curtailed his season.  Robert Gsellman is the owner of an unsightly 5.58 ERA in 19 starts and three relief appearances.  And had Steven Matz's season not come to a close after just 13 starts, he'd be in line to join Harvey in the Mile High ERA club (Matz finished the year with a 6.08 ERA).

But as awful as Mets pitchers have been this year, no pitcher in the 56-year history of the franchise who made as many as 16 starts has ever finished a season with an ERA higher than 6.00.  That may change when the curtain falls on the 2017 baseball season in a couple of weeks.  And a former Dark Knight could be facing some dark nights of his own during the off-season as he reflects upon his historically bad campaign.

 

Michael Conforto Could Join an Exclusive OBP Club

Make way for Michael Conforto, the OBP Machine!  (Mike Stobe/Getty Images)

In Wednesday's 10-5 victory over the Colorado Rockies, Michael Conforto reached base twice in five plate appearances, holding his on-base percentage at an impressive .401.  Despite Conforto's inability to crack the starting lineup early on (he started just four of the team's first 15 games), his 359 plate appearances currently qualify him for all full-season leaderboards, and as such, allow him to rank seventh in the National League in OBP.

Should Conforto maintain his .400-plus on-base percentage and reach the minimum 502 plate appearances to qualify for the batting title (or OBP title), he would join a very exclusive club of Mets players to accomplish that feat.  In fact, during the team's first 55 seasons, only seven players have reached base in at least 40% of their plate appearances when they had a sufficient number of trips to the plate.

Rk	Player	Year	OBP	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	HBP	SH	SF	BA	SLG	OPS
1	Cleon Jones	1969	.422	558	483	92	164	25	4	12	75	64	7	1	3	.340	.482	.904
2	Keith Hernandez	1984	.409	657	550	83	171	31	0	15	94	97	1	0	9	.311	.449	.859
3	Keith Hernandez	1986	.413	652	551	94	171	34	1	13	83	94	4	0	3	.310	.446	.859
4	Dave Magadan	1990	.417	541	451	74	148	28	6	6	72	74	2	4	10	.328	.457	.874
5	John Olerud	1997	.400	630	524	90	154	34	1	22	102	85	13	0	8	.294	.489	.889
6	John Olerud	1998	.447	665	557	91	197	36	4	22	93	96	4	1	7	.354	.551	.998
7	Rickey Henderson	1999	.423	526	438	89	138	30	0	12	42	82	2	1	3	.315	.466	.889
8	John Olerud	1999	.427	723	581	107	173	39	0	19	96	125	11	0	6	.298	.463	.890
9	Edgardo Alfonzo	2000	.425	650	544	109	176	40	2	25	94	95	5	0	6	.324	.542	.967
10	David Wright	2007	.416	711	604	113	196	42	1	30	107	94	6	0	7	.325	.546	.963
11	Michael Conforto	2017	.401	359	302	61	89	19	1	21	56	47	8	0	2	.295	.573	.974

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 8/3/2017.

Cleon Jones became the first Met to do so in 1969, reaching base at a .422 clip and propelling the team to a World Series title.  It wasn't until the Mets' 23rd season that Jones had company in this formerly one-man club, as Keith Hernandez produced a .409 on-base percentage in 1984; the Mets' first 90-win season since Jones and his teammates won it all 15 years prior.

Hernandez repeated his .400-plus OBP feat two years later, when he helped the Mets take home their second World Series trophy.  Keith's fill-in at first base in the 1986 division clincher became the third Met to play a full season with an on-base percentage greater than .400, as Dave Magadan flirted with a batting title in 1990 before settling for third place in that race, but still managed to produce a lofty .417 OBP in 541 plate appearances.

After Magadan's one-year wonder campaign, the Mets played musical chairs at first base.  From 1991 to 1996, the Mets had a plethora of players who became their everyday first baseman, including Magadan himself in '91, future Hall of Famer Eddie Murray in '92 and '93, David Segui in '94, Rico Brogna in '95 and Butch Huskey in '96.  It wasn't until they made one of the most one-sided trades in club history that they found a starter for more than two seasons, and he became the team's all-time OBP king.

John Olerud was a Met for only three seasons, but he reached base at least 40% of the time in all three campaigns.  In 1997, he became the first Met with a .400 OBP over a full season in seven years.  He then followed it up with a .447 OBP in 1998, which remains a single-season franchise record, and a .427 OBP in 1999, when he helped the team advance to within two victories of a World Series berth.  His 1999 teammate, Rickey Henderson, didn't want Olerud to party alone in the .400 club, so he crossed the velvet rope and put up a .423 on-base percentage of his own.

A year after Olerud and Henderson became the team's first pair of .400 OBP players, they were both gone, as Olerud signed a free-agent contract to return home to Seattle and Henderson played his way out of New York, earning his release from the team in May.  But a new man took over the reins as the team's resident .400 on-base guy in 2000, as Edgardo Alfonzo posted a career-high .425 OBP in helping the team win its fourth National League pennant.

In the 16 seasons since Fonzie went over .400 in the OBP column, only one Met has joined him in the .400 club.  That would be David Wright, who in 2007 became the most recent player to achieve an on-base percentage of .400 or greater, as he reached base at a .416 clip for the 88-win Mets.

For the past ten seasons, Cleon Jones, Keith Hernandez, Dave Magadan, John Olerud, Rickey Henderson, Edgardo Alfonzo and David Wright have been the only seven players to post a .400 OBP over a season of at least 502 plate appearances.  Now Michael Conforto and his .401 on-base percentage are threatening to make this an eight-man club.  But one other thing stands out among the members of the .400 club that Conforto could have a tough time duplicating.

When Jones became the first Met to post a .400 OBP over a full season in 1969, he did so for a 100-win team.  Hernandez had his .400 seasons in 1984 and 1986 when the Mets won 90 and 108 games, respectively.  Magadan's 1990 campaign ended with 91 Mets victories, while Olerud's three .400 OBP seasons occurred during 88, 88 and 97-win campaigns.  (Rickey's season gave us 97 wins as well.)  When Fonzie did it, the Mets won 94 regular season games.  And Wright's high OBP helped the Mets win 88 games.

See a pattern forming there?  Every player who produced a .400 OBP over a full season played for a Mets team that finished with a winning record.  In fact, the worst record by a Mets team that had such a player was 88-74.  That's a far cry from the current Mets team, which is currently seven games under .500 at 49-56.

This year has been an anomaly for the Mets; a year in which the pitching has been the team's greatest disappointment when it was supposed to be an asset.  If Michael Conforto finishes the season with an on-base percentage above .400, it will be anomaly for another reason.  Barring a late-season push in the standings, it would mark the first time a Mets team employed a player with a .400-plus OBP and failed to produce a winning record.  Even with a surge in August and September, the team would be hard pressed to reach 88 victories; the minimum number of wins produced a Mets club that had a .400 OBP player.

Michael Conforto has been a steady presence in the field and at the plate.  He's also been a steady presence on the basepaths, reaching base more than 40% of the time in 2017.  However, his team hasn't been able to take advantage of his keen ability to not make outs.  The potential to join an exclusive seven-man club that includes several all-time Mets greats is a fine accomplishment.  It would be far better if Conforto could match Jones, Hernandez, Magadan, Olerud, Henderson, Alfonzo and Wright by joining that club while playing for a competitive Mets team.

Move Along, People! No Unicorn Score to See Here!

On Friday, the Mets defeated the Colorado Rockies by a final score of 14-2.  As blogfather, author and respected Unicorn Score researcher Greg Prince noted, it was the first time in the team's 56-year history that they had won a game by that exact score.  Hence, 14-2 is referred to as a Unicorn Score, which as defined by our fervent Faith and Fear friend is "a score by which the Mets win once and never again."

As of this writing, the fewest runs scored by the Mets in a Unicorn Score game is 11, which they accomplished on May 20, 1999 when they defeated the Milwaukee Brewers, 11-10.  Not only is that the only time in Mets history that the team has won a game by an 11-10 score, but that May 20 affair was the first of two games played by the Mets that day; a day in which Robin Ventura clubbed grand slams in each game, which made him the first - and still only - player in big league history to accomplish that feat.

In addition, the Mets have never won a game by a 12-11 score in franchise history.  That remains the fewest runs needed by New York to win a game by a Unicorn Score.  (They've lost two games by a 12-11 score, but like the numbers of ringzzzz the Yankees have, we don't care about those.)

But what about anti-Unicorn Scores?  Which scores are the most common in Mets history when the team has taken care of business and emerged victorious?  I'm glad you asked.  (Trust me, you asked.  I heard you through the screen.)

The most common score in a Mets victory - an anti-Unicorn Score, if you will - is not surprisingly, a low-scoring game that was decided by one run.  The Mets have won 291 games by the exact final score of 3-2.  In their 1969 championship season alone, the Mets won 11 games by that score.  Incredibly, the Mets have won at least one game by a 3-2 score in each of their first 55 seasons.  However, they have yet to win a 3-2 game in 2017.

There are two other scores that have resulted in happy recaps more than 200 times.  Those scores are 2-1 (Mets have won 247 games by that score) and 4-3 (241 of those).

Want more?  The most repeated final score in Mets victories that weren't decided by a single tally is 4-2.  New York has celebrated 182 of those identical wins.  And the team the Mets have beaten the most by the exact same final result?  That one is a surprise.  Despite never playing in the same division and thereby having fewer games scheduled against them than they would against N.L. East squads, the Mets have defeated the Cincinnati Reds 33 times by a 3-2 score.  All but one of those 3-2 victories happened from 1962 to 2002, as the Mets have only defeated the Reds once in the last 15 years by a 3-2 margin.

Blue and orange unicorns do exist.

In 2015, the Mets won a 14-9 game for the first time in team history, defeating the Rockies by that score.  That Unicorn Score lasted 24 hours, as the following day, the Mets beat Colorado by that twice-in-a-lifetime score.  Last night, the Mets put up another Unicorn Score against the Rockies in their 14-2 victory.  Perhaps this time around, they'll follow it up by winning with the most common anti-Unicorn Score of 3-2.  If they do, it would be the first time they've defeated anyone by that score this year.

As the saying goes, if you watch baseball long enough, you'll end up seeing something you've never seen before, like a Unicorn Score.  Or maybe you'll see something you've seen over 200 times before, like a 3-2 Mets victory.  I wonder what the team has in store for us tonight.

The Mets Have Been BABIP'ed to Death in 2017

Steven Matz was a BABIP-buster in his first start of 2017.  (Daniel Shirley/Getty Images)

The Mets have been living in a bizarro world in 2017; a world in which their offense has been decent (third in homers, seventh in runs scored, .285 BA w/RISP) but their pitching has been suspect.  The team's 4.82 ERA is third-highest in the majors, with only the cellar-dwelling Padres (4.98 ERA) and Phillies (5.00 ERA) faring worse and all American League teams (a.k.a. the league that has to face a D.H.) faring better.

Although the Mets have allowed a ton of runs over their first 60 games of the season, it could actually be a lot worse, as the team has the highest WHIP in the National League (1.478), which is just barely better than the poorest mark in the American League, held by Baltimore (1.480).

Opposing hitters are constantly getting on base against the Mets, whether it be via base hits or one of the shockingly high number of walks allowed by the team's pitchers.  And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell you that those lofty baserunner totals will in turn lead to crooked numbers on the scoreboard.

Batting average against, WHIP and ERA tell us part of the story of the 2017 Mets' failures on the mound, but not the complete story.  In fact, something not found in the daily boxscores could be more significant in determining how the Mets will fare for the remainder of the season.  And that something is sponsored by the letters B, A, B, I and P.

Batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is calculated by taking the number of hits that don't leave the yard and dividing that by at-bats minus strikeouts minus home runs plus sacrifice flies.  To the mathematically inclined, it looks a little something like this:

(Hits - HR) / (AB - SO - HR + SF)

At-bats that result in strikeouts and home runs cannot be affected by a defensive player, so those numbers are subtracted.  Sacrifice flies, on the other hand, are caught by the player on defense, but do not count as an at-bat for the hitter, hence why they are added in the denominator.  In layman's terms, BABIP measures the percentage of balls in play that result in base hits.

In general, a .300 BABIP is considered average.  Therefore, a pitcher who allows a BABIP under .300 generally has a solid defense behind him (they're good at getting to balls and converting them into outs).  Luck can also be a determining factor in a low BABIP, as the pitcher may be giving up line drive after line drive, but those liners may be headed directly at the defensive players' gloves.  Therefore, if a pitcher has a low BABIP, eventually it is to be expected that that figure will regress to the mean of .300 at some point.  Likewise, a pitcher who allows a BABIP over .300 can expect the balls that are put in play to find the gloves of his defense reasonably soon.

According to fangraphs.com, Mets pitchers have allowed the highest BABIP (.321) of any team in baseball this season.  No other National League team is even close, as the Pittsburgh Pirates have the second-worst BABIP against them at .308.

Jacob deGrom's BABIP?  It's an unsustainable .350, which means his 4.75 ERA is bound to go down once his BABIP begins to do the same.  Similarly, Robert Gsellman (.317 BABIP) and Zack Wheeler (.305) should also improve as the season progresses, with Gsellman already showing signs of his BABIP returning to the typical .300 level.  Even Noah Syndergaard, who was pitching extremely well before a lat injury sent him to the sidelines, had a .329 BABIP against him in five starts, which suggested that his best efforts were yet to come.

The BABIP bug that has affected deGrom, Gsellman and the plethora of spot starters on the team has also found its way to the bullpen, as Fernando Salas (31 appearances, .313 BABIP), Josh Smoker (21 appearances, .357 BABIP) and Paul Sewald (17 appearances, obscenely high .422 BABIP) have had difficulty with batted balls finding the outfield grass instead of their defense's gloves.

Unfortunately, most of these high BABIP figures are the fault of the Mets' subpar defense.  If the defense doesn't have the range or speed to get to ground balls in the hole or fly balls in the gaps, then more hits will result.  It is why teams like the Twins, Yankees and Rockies are in first place in their respective divisions, as all three of those teams rank in the top five in defensive efficiency, converting many of the balls put in play against them into outs.

For the record, the Mets' .664 defensive efficiency is the worst in the majors.

The unwritten laws of BABIP say that pitchers with a figure north of .300 will eventually allow fewer hits on balls put in play.  With the Mets sporting a major league-worst .321 BABIP entering today's game, the days of 7-6 and 9-8 losses could be coming to an end.  Saturday's doubleheader sweep of the Braves, in which the Mets allowed a total of two runs could become the norm in the very near future.  Of course, the defense is going to have to step up its game so that those BABIPs don't continue to be the downfall of what was supposedly one of the best pitching staffs in baseball.

Oh, and while on the topic of BABIP, Matt Harvey better put on his big boy pants soon.  His 5.02 ERA may be an eyesore, but it could (and should) be far worse.  Through his first 12 starts, the BABIP against him is a ridiculously low .259.  The Dark Knight may very well be looking forward to some dark nights at Citi Field once that number starts to creep up closer to the norm.

************

Speaking of the Dark Knight, it is with great sadness that we mourn the passing of TV's Batman, Adam West.  West was anything but dark in the campy program, entertaining viewers through the show's reruns for half a century.  He also lent his voice and name to the mayor on "Family Guy".  West remained quite popular with fans and pop culture enthusiasts until his death Friday night at the age of 88.  His Family Guy character may have hated baseball cards, but baseball and non-baseball fans alike loved Adam West.  May he rest in peace.

How Are the Mets Scoring All These Runs?

High fives at the plate have become more prevalent for the Mets these days.  (Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

On Saturday, the Mets defeated the Miami Marlins, 11-3.  The drubbing of the Fish was the ninth consecutive game in which the team scored five or more runs.  It was also just the fifth time in franchise history that such a streak had been reached, surpassed only by a 12-game stretch in 2007.

What makes this current streak all the more impressive is that the Mets are doing it without the services of disabled sluggers Yoenis Céspedes and Lucas Duda, and with middle-of-the-order hitter Curtis Granderson batting .139.  Even the healthy players have been having a rough time during the season's first five weeks, as their combined .233 batting average is tied with the San Francisco Giants for the second-lowest in the National League.  (Only the San Diego Padres are lower, at .217.  It should be noted that the Giants and Padres have the the two worst records in the N.L., as they have combined to go 23-40 through Saturday's games.)

So what exactly have the Mets been doing to produce all these runs during this recent outburst of offense?  Smoke, mirrors and the threat of Ray Ramirez paying a visit to the visitors' clubhouse can only go so far.  Let's take a look at how a depleted team has become an offensive juggernaut practically overnight.

Rk		Strk Start	End	Games	R	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	SB	CS	BA
1	NYM	2007-08-11	2007-08-24	12	83	130	23	1	17	54	27	2	.304
2	NYM	2017-04-27	2017-05-06	9	71	91	28	1	15	35	5	2	.287
3	NYM	2006-06-06	2006-06-15	9	74	108	30	4	12	37	16	2	.319
4	NYM	2002-09-06	2002-09-13	9	61	103	14	1	15	29	12	2	.307
5	NYM	1990-06-08	1990-06-16	9	85	128	35	1	17	40	2	4	.370

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 5/7/2017.

In scoring nearly eight runs per game over their last nine contests, the Mets have been able to move from last place in the division to second place.  However, despite the fact that the players have been doing a conga line around the bases for the last week and a half, the team has managed to bat just .287 during those nine games.  Although this a marked improvement from their low Mendoza-like average, it's still the lowest batting average of the five Mets teams that have produced nine-game streaks of 5+ runs (see chart above).  In fact, it's the only time the Mets have had such a streak without batting over .300 or collecting 100 hits to accomplish it.

The Mets have been bunching their hits together to produce crooked numbers on the scoreboard.  During their nine-game skein, the team has come to bat in 79 innings.  They've failed to score in 50 of those frames and scored one run in ten of the innings.  For all you kids out there, that's a total of ten runs scored in 60 innings.  That means the other 61 runs during the streak have been scored in just 19 turns at bat.

In last night's game, the Mets pushed across 11 runs.  Every time they scored in an inning, they scored at least three times.  (They scored five times in the first and touched the plate three times in both the fifth and seventh.)  In their come-from-behind victory on Friday, they used another five-run seventh inning to complete their comeback.  In each of the last five games, the Mets have had at least one inning in which they scored four or more runs.  That'll certainly help a team continue a streak of 5+ runs per game.

In addition to the big innings, the Mets have also been teeing off on opposing teams' bullpens in the late innings.  The Mets have batted 25 times during the streak from the seventh inning on.  They've scored 26 runs in those 25 innings.  Included in this is Jay Bruce's grand slam with two outs in the ninth inning against the Braves on Tuesday, which pushed the Mets' run tally for the night from three runs to seven.  Yup, without the four-run blast, the 5+ run streak would have ended and I'd be writing about the sex toy in Kevin Plawecki's locker or Matt Harvey's suspension instead.  (What do you mean those would have made better topics?)

The main reason the Mets have been scoring a handful of runs a night is because they're killing it with runners in scoring position.  Prior to the streak, the Mets were doing fairly well with runners on second and/or third, batting .277 in those situations (28-for-101).  That number for the season is now up to a whopping .328 (62-for-189), as the Mets have gone 34-for-88 (.386) with runners in scoring position in their last nine games.  That would also explain why the team hasn't needed to follow their usual formula of home runs or nothing to score their runs.  The Mets failed to hit a homer in their two highest scoring games of their nine-game streak (16 runs, no homers on Wednesday; 11 runs, no homers last night).

Here's the crazy thing about this streak.  It could very well continue, or at the very least, be interrupted by no more than a game or two before a similar streak begins.  Why is that?  Because the team still has a ridiculously low .252 BABIP this season.  Eventually that number has to get closer to .300, and when it does (as it's trying to do now), the runs will light up the scoreboard.  As you can see in the chart below, over the last 14 days (ten games), the Mets have produced a slight lower-than-normal .291 BABIP and have still managed to average 7.3 runs per game.  They're averaging nearly double-digit runs per game with a .320 BABIP over the last week.

Split	GS	R	BAbip
2017 Totals	29	152	.252
Last 7 days	5	49	.320
Last 14 days	10	73	.291

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 5/7/2017.

Hot streaks come and go.  The one the Mets are currently on could come to an end soon.  But the low BABIP over the first five weeks and the production with runners in scoring position all season leads me to believe that it won't come to a crashing halt.  In fact, the Mets might actually not have their annual June swoon next month, especially since most of their injured everyday players could be back by then.

It's not smoke.  It's not mirrors.  It's just a good baseball team finally doing what they were supposed to do when they were put together.