Deliver Me, Oh Lord, From These Feckless Nibblers

Adrian Houser seems like a decent sort. And he pitched cromulently enough for the Brewers last year: eight wins, a 4.12 ERA, a 3.99 FIP that suggested he’d earned his more conventional numbers.

Yet he’s the first 2024 Met I can’t stand.

Houser’s been horrible, which he admitted after the latest debacle on Saturday, calling his pitching “pretty unacceptable.” He also noted that he’s been putting his teammates in a hole at the beginning of the game: Saturday saw Houser allow four runs in the first, which isn’t ever a good idea and particularly isn’t a good idea when the opposing pitcher is Sonny Gray. The Mets actually fought back in this one, trimming a 5-0 St. Louis lead to 6-4 for a time and putting the winning run on base in the ninth, but it never felt like they were in it, and that goes back to Houser letting the air out of the balloon while the crowd was still comparing notes on their first sighting of the new City Connect jerseys. They certainly became well-acquainted with HOUSER 35, getting multiple opportunities to talk fonts and spacing and what-not as 35’s owner turned his back to watch another ball touching grass.

Houser was a little unlucky, truth be told, with some quirky contact against him, plays not quite made and little parachutes falling in. But, to paraphrase Casey Stengel, he’s gonna be unlucky all year if he don’t change. He’s walking way too many guys, his location is horrible, and frankly he looks lost out there.

You may be thinking that’s insufficient reason to say you can’t stand a guy, and I kind of agree. But hold that thought: We’ll get back to what drives me insane about Houser, because it’s not just about him.

The highlight of the day? That was easy: It was Pete Alonso taking a ball the other way off Gray for a two-run homer, the 200th of his career. Alonso now joins Darryl Strawberry, David Wright and Mike Piazza as Mets in the 200-homer club. Unless something goes wrong he’ll catch Piazza at 220; chasing down Wright (242) and Straw (252) will likely depend on whether or not Steve Cohen opens the checkbook and brings him back to the Mets. To the long list of obvious reasons he should do so, add the fact that the first thing Alonso said when asked about the milestone was that he was trying to get his team back into the game.

Another highlight, I suppose, was Francisco Lindor avoiding the platinum sombrero; unfortunately Lindor did so by popping up the first pitch from Cardinals closer Ryan Helsley, who was working without his best slider and so wound up loading the bases in a 7-4 game. That was the final out. Lindor has had a bizarre year so far, looking alternately lost and locked in, but then you could say that about the entire team: They’ve alternately looked unbearable and unbeatable. It’s wearying, to say the least.

Another moment that wasn’t a highlight but should be noted was poor Josh Walker balking in a run, which made me scowl at the TV — something that, to be fair, I’d been doing a lot given Houser was gnawing at one end of my last exposed nerve while John Smoltz was chomping on the other. Wait a minute, hadn’t it been Walker on the mound in that mind-bogglingly hideous game in Kansas City last summer, the one that started with vaguely valuable Mets fleeing to the airport to play for teams with a pulse and ended with Walker balking in the winning run?

Yep, that was him. He should stop doing that.

We also got the City Connects making their on-field debut. My impression seeing them in a game was pretty much the same as it was upon their unveiling: I applaud the thought that went into the detailing, and salute the Mets for not just cranking out some vague alt of what they already had, but someone needed to step back from all the fiddling with minute elements and look at the overall design. If you’re going for purple, actually go for it: Make the NY logo purple, and the NYC, and the names and numbers, and wear purple sleeves. Instead the purple was treated like an afterthought, it doesn’t pop, and the uniform just looks dull and drab.

Anyway, back to Houser and what bugs me. It’s that he’s a nibbler, and I am so tired of nibblers. Back in spring training The Athletic’s Chad Jennings wrote a wonderful article about the Rays and their pitching philosophy, one that helps explain why guy after guy seems to turn the corner once he gets puts on a cap with a TB on it. That philosophy is so refreshingly simple: As Pete Fairbanks explains it to Jennings, “throw strike one and believe in your shit.” When Zack Littell arrived in St. Pete last year after up-and-down tenures with the Twins, Giants and Red Sox, the Rays surprised him by telling him to throw everything down the middle.

Really? asked Littell. Yes, really.

The idea is that everyone’s stuff is good enough to play in the strike zone — and that pitchers who take that to heart come to trust their stuff. Pitching coach Kyle Snyder talks about the cost of ball one: In 2023, the average major-league hitter had a .266 on-base percentage after falling behind 0-1, and a .380 OBP after getting ahead 1-0.

Throw strike one and believe in your shit. In other words, don’t fucking nibble. You’re handing out .380 OBPs when you do that.

Isn’t that appealing? Wouldn’t you rather see that than this depressing parade of 1-0s and 2-1s and 3-2s and catchers trudging out to the mound and the crowd muttering unhappily because it’s happening again?

Houser isn’t throwing strike one, and he pretty clearly doesn’t believe in his shit. And too many other Mets are similar: From way off in Washington State my kid divined that I was losing my mind and texted that Houser could be out of a job once Tylor Megill returns, which could be soon seeing how Megill pitched for the Brooklyn Cyclones on Saturday.

My reaction?

Replacing one feckless nibbler with another? I can’t wait.