Who the hell are these guys, and what have they done with the Mets?
Lockdown starting pitching, clutch hitting, crisp play — 12 games into the season the Mets look nothing like the team that has inhabited Citi Field the last several years.
Behind Jacob deGrom’s seven innings of shutout ball and home runs from Travis d’Arnaud and Wilmer Flores, the Mets won for the seventh straight time — their longest winning streak in five years — beating the Marlins, 5-4, in front of an announced sellout crowd of 41,844 in Queens on Saturday night. They improved to 9-3 on the young season, their best record after 12 games since starting 10-2 in 2006, and began the year 6-0 at home for the first time since 1985.
“Baseball is supposed to be fun, and I think everybody in this clubhouse is having fun right now,” deGrom said.
DeGrom, the reigning National League Rookie of the Year, has gone 18 ¹/₃ innings without allowing a run after yielding a two-run homer in the first inning of his regular-season debut to the Nationals’ Ryan Zimmerman. DeGrom fanned eight and scattered six singles in picking up his seventh straight win at home and lowering his ERA to a microscopic 0.93.
Despite tossing seven shutout frames in his previous start, deGrom wasn’t pleased with his performance, particularly his inability to control his offspeed stuff. He watched extra video of that effort with pitching coach Dan Warthen and made a concerted effort to throw downhill and not let his body get ahead of his arm.
His finest work came in the sixth. DeGrom allowed back-to-back singles to Dee Gordon and Christian Yelich with one out in the frame, putting the tying runs on base as Marlins slugger Giancarlo Stanton stepped to the plate. After falling behind 3-0, deGrom rebounded to strike out Stanton, blowing a 96-mph fastball past the feared home run hitter. He retired Martin Prado on a pop-up to escape the threat.
“There are those guys that have what it takes to play and what it takes to pitch, and he’s got it,” Mets manager Terry Collins said. “He’s got the knack. He’s got the feel for it. He’s kind of like Matt [Harvey].
“It’s a tribute to the makeup he’s got.”
The Mets basically put the game away in the bottom of the inning. Eric Campbell — who has filled in seamlessly for injured Captain David Wright — drove in Michael Cuddyer with an opposite-field single and Wilmer Flores followed with a two-run shot, his second of the year, extending to a 5-0 lead.
The Marlins scratched out four runs off the Mets bullpen when deGrom departed, getting a run in the eighth and three in the ninth off Carlos Torres with closer Jeurys Familia unavailable because of his heavy workload of late. But Alex Torres struck out Yelich as the Mets clinched the series victory.
“I think we believe in each other,” Cuddyer said. “We believe in the guy hitting behind us, the guy hitting in front of us, the starter that pitches the day before, the starter that pitches after the guy. Everybody believes in each other. That goes a long way. That’s what builds winning teams.”
Of course, the season is just 12 games old. But after an offseason and spring training in which the expectations were raised by everyone — from the players to Collins to ownership and the front office — this is exactly the start the Mets feel they needed.
“I realize it’s early, I certainly understand where we’re at,” Collins said. “But you know what? These games count. They count in the win column. Everybody thinks pennants are won in August and September, and maybe they are, but I’ll tell you one thing: If you win early, at least you’re in a dogfight [later in the season]. We’ll take them.”