Braves Pound the Mets 14-1 As Rick Porcello Gets Lit Up In His Met Debut By Rich Coutinho Met Beat Reporter The NY Extra.com

Rick Porcello was signed by the Mets in the off-season to provide pitching depth and with both Noah Syndergaard and Marcus Stroman on the injured list that concept of pitching depth got the first test tonight and it failed miserably.

Porcello was torched by the Braves for 7 runs in just 2 innings of work and expressed his disappointment after the game saying, “I was looking forward to this night for a long time and I just did not perform well as I felt my change up was off all night and that put me behind in counts and also at times the Braves hit those pitches real hard doing damage.”

A game like this poses many questions about this Met rotation and in his post game session with the media Luis Rojas made it very plain–Seth Lugo is staying in the pen because he is too valuable there but you wonder if Rick Porcello does not right the ship, will he change his mind on that decision?

I think much of that will depend on Michael Wacha who was also added for pitching depth in the off-season and will start for the team in Boston on Monday night. The Tuesday night starter is very much up in the air as Corey Oswalt was forced to throw over 70 pitches in relief making it unlikely he could start on Tuesday and as of this moment, the Mets have not announced whom their starting pitcher will be on Tuesday night.

In the past few years, the Mets have relied on their starting rotation to be the fulcrum of the organization but aside from Jacob deGrom and Steven Matz 60% of that rotation right now is comprised of huge question marks until Marcus Stroman returns.

And thus far the offense has not carried the ball the way the team has hoped they would. Granted it is only 3 games but this 2020 season is a short one and someone must step up and turn the last 2 days around as the team heads to Fenway Park. In this CoVid world, the Mets will be taking a bus ride to Boston avoiding the hassles of air flights in our pandemic world.

In a way that could be an advantage as this is the time to get back to basics, have some direct conversation and assess how they can put these last 2 games way in the rear view mirror much like minor league players do—on a long bus ride.