Mets Today asks: “Is this the soft spot in the schedule?”
Three games against the Pirates followed by four games with the lowly Padres — a seven-game span of less than mediocre opponents. What makes it all the more intriguing is that this stretch is “the calm before the storm” in that it comes right before perhaps the toughest section of their season — the next 8 series include facing the Phillies, Cardinals (for four), first-place Nationals, Yankees, Rays, Reds, first-place Orioles, and Yankees again. Whew!
I think strength of schedule is an argument that doesn’t mean much in baseball. It’s more suited for the short season that the NFL plays, although many people had the New York Giants buried based on the schedule difficulty and they ended up winning the Super Bowl. There are so many hot and cold streaks in baseball that you can get a good team that’s slumping and beat them, and get a bad team that turns in three good pitching performances in a row and sweeps you. Sometimes the timing is that you face the top three pitchers in a rotation, and other times you get the soft underbelly. Losing to a bad team doesn’t eliminate you from contention and more than beating a good team clinches a competitive season. This is part of the reason I don’t care about a balanced schedule.
So no, I’m not concerned that the Mets have a difficult stretch coming up. I think it’s more important to concentrate on how the Mets themselves are playing since certainly the Mets can beat any team if some guys are hitting and Johan Santana and R.A. Dickey are dazzling. It’s also worth noting that although the Yankees and Phillies may project as tough teams, they aren’t that right now. The opposite might be said about the Nationals and the Orioles.
Still, the Padres should be a very beatable team, and you’d like the see the Mets get their act together and do so. Winning the series against the Padres would put them at their high water mark for the season and that’s a great place to start when you’re facing the defending division and world champs back to back.
