Bad Math

Well, if you want to view the glass as an eighth full, I suppose Seth Lugo solved the Mets’ bullpen-availability problem.

A night after watching Max Scherzer do maximum damage to the Braves, the Mets turned to David Peterson, who wasn’t nearly as flashy as his ace counterpart but was pretty damn good, ping-ponging between his fastball and his slider and leaving Atlanta off-balance and out of kilter. But Peterson’s pitch count was climbing, as it so often does, and a hard-earned 1-0 lead was looking even skinnier than that skinny vertical number would indicate as he tried to get through the fifth with a pitch count that neared 100 and then went over it.

Peterson was out there because the Mets had a bullpen problem looming ahead of them: no Edwin Diaz after being used three days in a row, and if sartorial clues count most likely no Adam Ottavino either. Which left … well, who, exactly? Drew Smith, whose early successes have been followed by too many failures? Seth Lugo, who’s become serially unreliable? Colin Holderman, who’s been good but one fears is living on borrowed time? Tommy Hunter, a likeable stalwart but one whose mileage and track record don’t inspire confidence?

No, Buck Showalter counted up the outs left to get and gambled that a tired Peterson was a better bet to reduce that number than turning to someone else and setting those tired-reliever dominoes falling.

Peterson didn’t get a lot of help when home-plate ump Andy Fletcher ruled strike three on Dansby Swanson was somehow a ball. (Before you rush to the barricades, Fletcher was at least consistently inconsistent, ringing up various other Braves on balls that didn’t look like strikes.) It looked like Peterson had escaped when Matt Olson clubbed a ball down the right-field line that somehow went just foul, but in fact the inevitable had merely been delayed. Olson got a pitch as much to his liking if not more so and smashed this one into a tree behind center field, its flight measured from the ground by a forlorn Brandon Nimmo.

Y’know what? I enjoyed that trick far more when Cliff Floyd was the one performing it.

That was Peterson’s last pitch; he departed down 2-1 and handed the ball off to Lugo, who was good for one inning and bad for another and so let the game get out of reach.

One game blah blah blah blah etc. etc. etc., but the Mets have a bullpen problem. There are exactly two reliable guys out there, with a bunch of journeymen who make you flinch and youngsters you fear are overdue to turn back into pumpkins. And somehow the thought of Trevor May riding to the rescue doesn’t make me feel like everything will be OK.

The Mets have a bullpen problem. I sure hope they solve it, because this team’s been a lot of fun to watch and I’d like to watch them for a chunk of the fall that in recent years has been open for other forms of entertainment.

But hey, while it may not be a solution, at least the two trustworthy guys should be rested for Wednesday afternoon.