New York Mets 9-1 Start is the Best in Franchise History

Righthander Zack Wheeler was scheduled to make his first start of the season in the New York Mets’ game at Miami on April 11th. Wheeler had a pair of promising seasons in 2013 and 2014, but his career was sidetracked by Tommy John surgery and he did not pitch in 2015 or ’16. He made 17 starts in 2017 with mixed results. He has been pitching at AAA Las Vegas, and will make a spot start for Jason Vargas.

An effective Wheeler in the Mets rotation will would complete one of the best groups of starters in baseball. He would join Noah Syndergaard, Matt Harvey, Steven Matz, and Jacob deGrom. The Mets won the National League Pennant in 2015 with Wheeler on the shelf, and big things were predicted for the young rotation in the future. Injuries to the pitching staff over the last two years have kept one or more of them out of the lineup for vast chunks of time; the Mets made it to the post season as a Wild Card in 2016, losing to San Francisco in the playoff, and were 70-92 in a horrible 2017 season.

It’s a different story this year, at least in the early going. On April 10th, the Mets rallied from a 6-4 deficit after seven innings to score twice in the eighth and twice in the ninth to beat Miami 8-6. The victory was the ninth in 10 games for the Mets, and set a franchise record for the best 10 game start in club history.

If the pitching staff can avoid costly injuries, and the veteran laden offense (Asdrubal Cabrera, Jay Bruce, Todd Frazier, Yoenis Cespedes, and Adrian Gonzalez are all 31 or older) continues to produce, the Mets should give the Washington Nationals some serious competition for the NL East title.