ATLANTA — When the Mets added right-handed relievers Tyler Rogers and Ryan Helsley at the July 31 trade deadline, the relief group collectively looked at one another with the recognition that the bullpen had become scary good.
That hasn’t been the case on the field. The relief group has encountered an unexpected transition period with the new additions.
“This is the best bullpen that all of us are ever going to be a part of,” Reed Garrett told the Daily News. “It’s a sense of trying to add. We added a whole bunch of new people, and had a couple of guys who were still here, and our roles have changed. I’m not saying that’s an excuse for myself or for anyone else, it just takes time.”
The club has been desperately trying to seek answers to the issues that have plagued them since June. The Mets won three straight this week, only to lose two to the Washington Nationals. The one game they won featured David Peterson going eight innings to spare a bullpen that has been trying to adjust to new roles and take on an unexpectedly high workload.
Although at this point, they should probably expect to start getting ready in the fourth inning.
“Everybody goes through it, and everybody has to kind of battle through those difficult times of trying to succeed and not having success that you are preparing for,” Garrett said. “It kind of sucked that it got all of us, or at least a majority of us at the same time — starters, relievers, everybody.”
There was an unexpected transition period in the bullpen that was made even tougher by the starting rotation’s inability to go past the fourth or fifth inning nightly. Garrett and Ryne Stanek were once tasked with getting the ball to closer Edwin Diaz by pitching in the seventh or eighth innings, but then left-hander Brooks Raley returned to action after elbow surgery, Rogers and Helsely were traded to Queens, and they weren’t traded to pitch in the middle innings. Left-hander Gregory Soto was added shortly before the deadline, and Frankie Montas lost his rotation spot and started pitching in relief for the first time since 2018.
“I’ve been a starter for quite a bit, right? But at the end of the day, I just want to help,” Montas said. “If that’s where they think I can help the most, I’ll go to the bullpen — happily — because I’m going to have an opportunity.”
Montas has made only two relief appearances so far, with the Mets clearly trying to stay away from him in games they think they can win. He’s sought advice from relievers like Garrett and Raley to try to figure out how to best his pitches and stay focused on where the game is and what the situation is that he could be called in for.
“The biggest challenge is not knowing when I’m pitching,” Montas said. “Every time the phone rings, my heart beats a little harder. I feel like that’s been the biggest challenge, but also it kind of gives me different ways to stay ready and stay locked into the game.”
At one point this season, Helsley, the former St. Louis Cardinals closer, was toward the top of the leaderboard in saves, but since the trade, he’s allowed five earned runs in eight appearances. Stanek was given save opportunities earlier in the year, but now he’s in danger of losing his spot on the roster altogether after posting an 8.74 ERA in the second half of the season.
Thursday afternoon in Washington, Stanek gave up a game-breaking three-run homer to James Wood in the bottom of the eighth to increase a three-run lead to six. Any chance of a comeback by the Mets was gone.
“When he’s ahead in counts, he’s not able to finish hitters; when he’s maybe a little too much in the strike zone, they put the ball in play,” Mendoza said. “And he’s been a little bit unlucky as well, but I think executing when he’s ahead in counts, I think, has been the biggest thing. It’s making guys chase, as opposed to just leaving hittable pitches up.”
The bullpen has a 4.14 ERA over the last 30 days, and pitched 100.00 innings. They’ve struggled to contain the damage when coming in with inherited runners on base, leaving only 68.2% of them on, the seventh-worst rate in that span. They had hoped the transition period would be over by now, but when the starters fail to go past the fourth or fifth innings, it makes everyone’s job tougher.
Still, no one is pointing fingers. The relief corps sees how hard the starters are working to turn things around, and they’re pulling for their teammates.
“I feel like we were able to realize that, hey, we had to almost tread water to get through it and rely on each other,” Garrett said. “I feel like nobody in the clubhouse ever got down or discouraged. Yeah, there were frustrations because we weren’t playing to what we’re capable of doing, but nobody ever lost that sense of like, ‘Alright, I know we can do this. Let’s push through this and get through it together.”
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