Buck Showalter knows there's a lot of season left
Mets manager Buck Showalter looks on from the dugout against the Phillies during an MLB game at Citi Field on Saturday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Buck Showalter can read the NL East standings as well as you can, and he admits to doing so even at this relatively early stage of the season.
“I look at them,” the Mets’ manager said before Sunday night’s game against the Phillies at Citi Field. “I mean, heck, there it is. That’s what we’re all competing for. I know we’re in first place.”
Sure enough, they are. And regardless of the outcome against Philadelphia, they reached Memorial Day — the season’s first major milepost — with the largest divisional lead in the major leagues.
Entering Sunday night, it was eight games over second-place Atlanta, with the Phillies, Marlins and Nationals filling out the rest of a disappointing field.
The Mets’ 31-17 record through 48 games was tied for the fourth-best in franchise history. And did we mention the team’s two best starting pitchers, Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer, are injured?
But despite the good news in the standings, Showalter is keeping a wary eye on the posse that will chase the Mets — or at least try to — in the coming weeks.
“I look at it as a given that they’re going to be there,” he said of the Mets’ division rivals. “I see so many good teams in our division; they’re going to find their level.
“So to me, it’s kind of a given that they’re going to do things more reflective of what they’re capable of. So I don’t pay a lot of attention [to the standings] . . . It’s not a topic. Guys are kind of focused on the nine innings ahead, and what we can do each day presents a different challenge.”
The Mets have been in first place for all but one day this season, and 46 overall.
“It’s a long season,” Showalter said. “Barely played a quarter of the season. So whatever’s happened in the first quarter can flip very quickly, and you’re talking about a complete different situation.”
One reason the Mets hired Showalter was his been-there, done-that resume, and that includes his perspective on fast starts, slow starts and everything in between.
“Like I’ve said many times, I’ve been on an expansion team where we’re just trying to keep from losing 100 games, but there are periods during that season I’m going, ‘Man, we might not lose another game,’ ” he said.
“And there are periods where we have been on teams that won 100 games and for a period it’s like, ‘Oh, God, we might not win another game.’ So it kind of jolts you into the reality about how in the ebb and flow of the season, you’re never quite as good or as bad as sometimes the game will make you feel.”
Showalter said the key is staying focused on what you can control — and in the case of facing division opponents, handing them extra losses obviously helps.
Showalter reiterated that he does “glance up at the scoreboard,” in part because of how much time there is between pitches.
That led him to veer off into a discussion of how the pitch clock that is expected to come to the majors next season will speed up and change the game.
It was the day before Memorial Day, three days before June and three weeks before summer. Too soon to chill the champagne.
When asked about the holiday being a checkpoint for getting a sense of one’s team, he said, “I think it’s a little early. I think it’s a lot early . . . In a week’s time, the narrative completely changes.”
The Mets hope not.
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
