Clay Holmes saved the Mets' season with a performance on Saturday afternoon that officially stamped his conversion from relieving to starting as a success.
But will it matter?
The Reds beat the Brewers on Saturday night, which means the Mets enter Sunday’s regular-season finale against the Marlins hanging onto their postseason hopes by their collective fingernails, needing to win in Miami while praying the Reds lose their Game 162.
It has to be an ominous feeling for the Mets, knowing the Brewers have nothing to play for. But they have only themselves to blame for it, having played losing baseball for more than three months, some of it downright ugly with defensive misplays and mental errors as well.
However, there will be plenty of time to hand out blame if, indeed, the Mets are sent packing.
For the moment, they’re still alive and it’s only right to salute Holmes, as well as Pete Alonso, for Saturday’s 5-0 win that made everything right for at least one more day.
More than that, it was a reminder of the good old days, back in April and May when Holmes was fresh and strong, going six innings deep on many a night while the Mets were pitching their way to the top of the NL East standings.
Unfortunately for them, that feels like practically another lifetime at the moment. Which is why, in their 161st game of the season, they were potentially one loss from elimination and forever lamenting a second-half collapse that happened primarily because their pitching has been so shoddy for months.
So for Holmes to dig down deep — after seemingly hitting a wall weeks ago in this first year of his transition from the bullpen — stamped him as a clutch performer as he delivered a gem when the Mets needed it most.
Alonso took care of the offense, giving the Mets an early lead with an RBI double and a solo home run. He's finishing his show-me-the-money season in style, leading the majors in doubles and running his total of extra-base hits to 80.
It all made for a day when the Mets could heave a sigh of relief.
But, now what?
First, the Mets need to win Sunday. And they may be catching Edward Cabrera, the Marlins’ talented right-hander, when he’s less than at his best. He missed three weeks in September with an elbow strain before making his return last Tuesday, throwing 67 pitches while going four innings and giving up three runs, including two homers.
They also may have a favorable matchup in Milwaukee, where Brewers ace Freddy Peralta and his 2.67 ERA is scheduled to pitch. Because it’s a tune-up for his NLDS start next Friday, however, it remains to be seen how long he goes against the Reds.
For any of it to matter, meanwhile, the Mets need another well-pitched game. And for that, they’re giving the ball to Sean Manaea over David Peterson.
I think it’s the right call. Neither of them has pitched well lately, but Manaea has shown flashes of his 2024 form. Peterson just looks worn down by his career-high total of 168 innings. The home-grown lefty has a 9.72 ERA in his last four starts, giving up a whopping total of 18 runs in 16.2 innings.
Manaea’s numbers aren’t much better — he has a 7.29 ERA between August and September, and he gave up a home run in his one inning of relief against the Cubs on Wednesday.
But he's also had games where he pitches with dominance for a few innings at a time, usually early when his fastball has life and he’s elevating it for swings and misses — the way he did so successfully last season after adopting that Chris Sale-like sidearm delivery.
Mets manager Carlos Mendoza should be able to tell early if Manaea has the good fastball, and if not, he needs to have relievers warming up so that he can get him out at the first sign of trouble.
In truth, it’s hard for Mendoza — not to mention, Mets’ fans — to feel good about any of the choices for the final game. This team has plenty of other flaws, but their long, hard fall from 21 games over .500 is due mostly to their problems in the starting rotation.
During Saturday’s game, SNY had a revealing stat that showed, since June 13 — the by now-infamous date when they started the day at 45-24 — their starting rotation had accounted for 421 innings going into Game 161, the fewest in the majors.
As it is, it took three rookie starters — Nolan McLean, Brandon Sproat, and Jonah Tong — to keep the Mets in contention. And surely there is a case to be made that McLean should have been called up sooner, especially when the Mets were giving starts to career minor leaguers and/or Blade Tidwell.
One way or another, injuries and underperformance left the Mets with barely a semblance of the rotation they had early in the year, when Kodai Senga was pitching to a sub-2.00 ERA before the hamstring injury in June and Griffin Canning was looking like the surprise of the season.
As it turned out, Holmes proved to be the steadiest of all the Mets’ starters, pitching to a 3.53 ERA, which is in the top 10 in the NL, and throwing 165 innings, or nearly 100 more than his previous high in the big leagues, when he threw 70 as a reliever in 2021.
Holmes had some rocky moments along the way, when he was having trouble getting through five innings. But to finish the way he did on Saturday, as Mendoza put it, “says a lot about the work he put in to prepare to be a starter.”
For a team that’s going to have all sorts of questions about pitching going forward, Holmes has established himself as someone the Mets likely can count on for the remainder of his three-year contract.
Or maybe even in the postseason next week. He would line up on regular rest to pitch a do-or-die Game 3 against Dodgers in Los Angeles.
Right now, that sounds more like a hope and a prayer for the Mets. But at least Holmes kept them in it for at least one more day.
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