While it might seem like cockiness going on arrogance for the New York Mets to be making playoff pitching plans, it’s also mandatory at this point in the season. Despite the fact that the Mets keep keep opening the door open for the trio of teams trailing them in the wild card standings, they do have plans for their postseason roster.
According to Tim Britton of The Athletic, expect “creativity” to be the order of the day for these well-laid plans Not surprisingly, those plans revolve around rookie pitching phenom Nolan McLean and making him the number one guy out of the gate.
Fellow first-year hurlers Brandon Sproat and Jonah Tong have put themselves in the conversation for possible playoff starts, but so far McLean is the only one of the three who hasn’t stumbled badly yet.
He sort of did today, though. McLean came undone a bit in his start against the Washington Nationals, but he had plenty of help from his defense as outfielder Juan Soto and first baseman Pete Alonso both made errors to add a couple of unearned runs to his line. McLean wasn't as sharp as usual, but he mostly got the job done.
That puts him first in line to start Game 1 of a three-game playoff battle set against the Los Angeles Dodgers, which is the most likely possibility as things stand now. The logic behind this is simple: McLean is close to the only reliable starter the Mets have right now.
The rest of the rotation is a hodge hodge. Recently-demoted starter Sean Manaea could once again be piggy-backed to go with another starter, Clay Holmes, and it’s not out of the realm of possibility that three starters could be used in a single playoff game. There may be as many as six starters used in the Mets playoff rotation, which would be beyond weird but also typical of the Mets.
First they have to get there, though. The Cincinnati Reds are the latest contender to try to walk through the playoff door, and the Mets loss to the Nationals left the Reds just a game behind in the loss column. The Reds have won three straight and four of their last five, so perhaps they should start setting their rotation as well.
The real wild cards in this Mets rotation scenario are right-handers Brandon Sproat and Jonah Tong. Both have recently had genuinely bad outings sprinkled in with their successes, so they would represent a real playoff gamble. Not that the Mets have a lot of choices at this point.