By the end of this week, the Mets will have played more than half of their schedule and still hold the worst record in the NL East.
But if you were expecting them to crash the system and start over, you’ll have to wait a little longer.
Still, while Francisco Lindor is set to return from the calf strain that sidelined him since April to help the ailing offense, it won’t do anything to add to what has been a disappointing rotation or get other injured players back on the field.
But David Stearns said that as the trade deadline of Aug. 3 with about six weeks to go, Lindor and the rest of the barrel-dwelling team will have a chance to prove that what they have done in the first nearly three months of the season is not really wrong.
“We have some time here before we make a final decision at the trade deadline,” the team’s president of baseball operations said Tuesday at Citi Field. “And we’re at a point where we have to start playing better baseball.”
That’s putting it mildly.
Despite their poor record (34-44 after Tuesday’s series opener against the Cubs in Queens), Stearns said, “We’re going to continue to give this team time to prove they can get back to this in a legitimate sense.”
Stearns, speaking of his usual pitching presence – which he has been keeping as the season wore on for him – noted that it was impossible to blame their poor performance on any part of the team.
At different times in the press conference, he pointed out the inability of the players who are starting to change to stay healthy or enter the games, the failure of the players to produce runs and the organization so far cannot get many of its players to play in their way.
When Stearns was asked about the disappointing exchange, he said, “It’s clear that we have been consistent in that part of the game.
They’ve resorted to using openers regularly and the addition of senior Freddy Peralta has had a torrid season, which Stearns blames in part on mechanical issues that may have affected his position.
The prosecution was not much better, with Bo Bichette still awaiting trial and Jorge Polanco and Luis Robert Jr. they are not close to returning from injury.
And many inexperienced players never improved, except for Carson Benge and AJ Ewing.
“Both the run-scoring and first innings have to be more consistent going forward to continue the type of high-level play that we need to have,” Stearns said.
But he still has confidence in the team he has put together.
Asked if he could “fix” the team during the season, Stearns said: “The word ‘fix’ is not something I think about.
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Despite that lack of progress, Stearns said he is “happy” with the coaching staff’s practices, many of which have been tweaked during the offseason.
The Mets entered Tuesday six games out of the last wildcard spot in the National League and 14 ½ games behind Atlanta atop the NL East. All this from the team owner Steve Cohen said during the spring that we need to make the postseason this year.
“I think Steve wants us to be better than we are,” Stearns said. “He’s frustrated. We’re all frustrated. Steve expects us to do better than this. I expect us to do better than this. “He, like me, is going to withhold a decision on a trade deadline strategy until he has to make a decision closer to that time.”
The clock is ticking.
