You learn very quickly that covering this sport doesn’t assign too much weight to any one game or series, and not when the games are still out. For everyone who knows him mets will defeat the brave On Sunday night, grab a first-place share and win the NL East tiebreak. Then they will win the division if they finish with the same record as the Braves, get a first-round match and enable Jacob Degrom And the Max Scherzer Rest until The Division.
Not unreal, is it? It’s also not unrealistic to envision DeGrum and Scherzer’s post-season dominance, considering who they are and all they’ve accomplished. Except this is the problem. The Mets are built for DeGrom and Scherzer to rise in this moment, the biggest series of the season against their biggest competitor. Neither of them provided the distinction the Mets needed, failing to stand up to the kind of opponent their team must beat in October.
The Mets waited until August 2 for Degrum to make his season debut. They put Scherzer on their list of injured September 7-19 to prevent him from “snapping” – Scherzer’s word – his left slash again. They signaled everything towards October, even rearranging their rotation so that Degrom starts the series opener with the idea of immediately securing a tie-break and putting the Braves on the defensive. Instead, they are left wondering where their season is going, and whether it will end more quickly than they imagined.
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