EL BARRIO, EL FALLS – Happy Monday. This not as good a weekend. The Rangers are gone, the Knicks are struggling with the Heat and the Mets are in poor form. The Jets have at least shown Aaron Rodgers the town. However, we need to dig deeper, so here are the topics for today; Slumping Mets, Knicks Underperforming and Rangers Playoff Analysis.
Slumping Mets
Woof!! The Mets form the last 10 games has been poor. They lost the series to the Braves 2-1, Got swept by the Tigers 3-0 and then lost the series to the Colorado Rockies. The vaunted pitching trio of Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander and Kodai Senga has amounted to Scherzer pitching poorly, in between being injured and suspended. Verlander just had his first start in Detriot, which was a good 5 innings but his lack of appearances have hurt the team. So the Mets have been using the bullpen guys and give them spot starts and the guys that guys who are long relievers being starters have had mixed results. It would help if the bats woke up. Frankie Lindor no longer has free pass from me. He is not getting on base enough and he needs to drive in runs. Pete Alonzo needs more contact and no just the occasional homerun. The rest of the team seem to do a good job getting on base but a terrible job driving runners in. The base runners are left stranded. The bright side is until the lost yesterday, the Mets were at .500 or above, now they are 17-18. There is plenty of time to get things right and as shown last year, winning the division is overrated just get to the playoffs.
Knicks Underpreforming
The Miami Heat seem to have the Knicks number. The Knicks lost Game 1 and Game 3, coincidentally the game they won was the on Jimmy Butler sat out. The Knicks have been let down by their shooting and one thing that stays on my mind is the Knicks short bench. Coach Thibbs, is stubborn and has settled on a short bench but he has proven veterans in Derrick Rose and Evan Fournier. I am not talking giving them loads of minutes but Julius Randle, Josh Hart and Jalen Brunson played 38 minutes. I mean Rose could get out there and take a 4-5 minutes of Hart and Brunson or give him the minute to Duece McBride and Quentin Grimes minutes. Fournier can take some of Randle and Toppins minutes. Cause shooting is gonna struggle with tired legs. Not to mention Miami is getting points from Kevin Love and Kyle Lowrie, who are pretty old vets in their own right.
Rangers Analysis
The season is over but I never got share my thoughts. Ben Whitney called it a few months back that teams normally add grit at the deadline not skill because the playoffs are a grind. Turns out the Rangers scored plenty of goals in their 3 wins (15 Combined) but in the losses it was 1,1,1 and none in the critical game 7. I think the Rangers tinkered a bit too much in line shakeups, I would have kept the kid line together and put Panarin on the second scoring line. The defensive pairings are also a concern because I decision has to be made on K’Andre Miller. I think he has a ton of potential but he still has occassional brainfarts at the worse times. I don’t think the D3 line is good or productive enough. Finally as the Rangers were ahead of schedule last season before crashing down to earth this season, we have to look at Coach Gallant. I think it may be time to find a mountain top coach because maybe Gallant has taken the game as far as it can go.
Thanks for reading and feel free to comment below. Check out Ben Whitney, who is gleefully enjoying the Mets slumping.
