Mets fans call for firing Luis Rojas after unfortunate pitching change
A baseball season that held so much promise for the New York Mets has devolved into total despair. It began so hopefully with their new multibillionaire owner, Steve Cohen, bringing in All-Star shortstop Francisco Lindor, quickly followed by an unparalleled stretch of pitching by Jacob deGrom.
Conveniently lodged in the mediocre National League East, the Mets were in first place, leading by 4 games when this month began.
But the season’s low point was plumbed Wednesday night at Citi Field, when a beautifully pitched game by Taijuan Walker was interrupted by manager Luis Rojas. The Mets were leading baseball’s winningest team, the San Francisco Giants, 2-1 entering the 7th inning, and Walker was rolling. The All-Star righthander had retired the last seven batters he faced.
But then, Mets third baseman Jonathan Villar botched a routine groundball by leadoff batter Kris Bryant, and everything unraveled. The next batter up, Alex Dickerson, blooped a ball that second baseman Jeff McNeil or right fielder Michael Conforto should have reached, but neither did. It fell for a single.
So now there were runners on first and second, none out, and Rojas was nervous.
In this Age of Analytics, baseball managers regard the 7th inning as a mine field. It doesn’t matter if the pitcher is tired, and Walker clearly was not after just 74 pitches. But the next batter up, Brandon Crawford, had faced Walker three times, and even though he’d accomplished nothing, the new analytics suggested the tables were due to turn.
The old book said good pitching beats good hitting, and if your pitcher has given up only one hard-hit ball in six innings, you leave him out there.
Rojas is 39 and, clearly, new school. He had one of the sport’s most reliable relievers, Aaron Loup (1.04 ERA in 51 games), throwing in the bullpen, to set up a lefty-lefty duel with Crawford. As the manager slowly walked to the mound, Walker gestured emphatically with his arms. His lips seemed to be saying, “Now? What are we doing? Come on.”
TV cameras were all over Walker as he fumed in the dugout and fumed a lot more when Crawford lashed the first offering from Loup, a middle-of-the-plate cutter, into the right field corner. Two runs scored on the double, and Walker threw a water bottle.
The crowd was as unhappy as Walker. A chant broke out: “Fire Ro-jas!” The mood darkened as the Mets went on to lose 3-2. As Loup put it, “We were basically booed off the field.”
“They can say whatever,” Rojas said. “We have a passionate fan base.”
He patiently explained his strategy: “Taijuan was throwing a really good game. He didn’t deserve to come out. But Brandon Crawford is their best hitter, and of all our pitchers, the best matchup against him is Aaron Loup. We went with the matchup.”
It’s true that Crawford prefers to face righties, but he’s no soft touch against lefties this season. He’s slashing .276/.327/.490 against them.
The problem with analytics is that they don’t take into account occasions when pitchers are at their very best. We saw this in Game 6 of the last World Series, when Blake Snell was pitching the game of his life, but manager Kevin Cash still didn’t trust him in the sixth inning, where he’s had troubles before and since. Sometimes a manager must go by what his eyes see on the field, not what they see on the stat sheet. That’s why we have human managers and not robots.
Todd Zeile, former big-leaguer who’s a studio analyst for SNY, said on his postgame broadcast that Wednesday’s move by Rojas “was the worst decision I’ve seen this season.”
Will it cost him his job? Not right away, but it could be seen as the defining moment of the Mets’ wretched season.
They had another 3-2 loss to San Fran on Thursday night, leaving them 5 games under .500, 7 ½ games behind division-leading Atlanta and 8 games from a wild card.
Rojas tried to strike an upbeat note, as managers must do. He announced “great news for us” — an MRI exam showed DeGrom’s elbow inflammation receding, allowing him to resume throwing. He last pitched on July 7, when he had a major-league leading 1.08 earned-run average.
It’s also encouraging that power-armed Noah Syndergaard began a minor-league rehab assignment Thursday, recovering from Tommy John surgery 17 months ago.
Rojas’ only hope would seem to be that DeGrom returns to the rotation and Syndergaard provides some back-end relief for the final 3-4 weeks of the regular season. But the Vegas bookies give the Mets only a 5% chance of a playoff berth.
Rojas’ position is weakened by the fact that he was chosen by the previous regime and was second choice at that. The Mets initially hired the popular Carlos Beltran, who resigned when word spread that he was the mastermind behind the 2017 Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scandal.
Rojas barely survived last season, when his team finished 26-34. It’s doubtful he survives this one if the Mets are left out of the playoffs again.
