After all that, the Mets came up just short of the playoffs.
Mickey Callaway's team was one of the worst in Major League Baseball at the All-Star break, but in the second half things turned around in a big way. The Mets were one of the hottest teams in the league and put themselves in position to possibly earn a wild-card spot.
They didn't earn that wild-card spot, but that doesn't mean the season is a total loss. "Boomer and Gio" began Thursday's show by essentially eulogizing the Mets' season.
"You think about the loss to the Washington Nationals, where they had the six-run lead in the ninth," said Boomer Esiason. "You think about the Braves and the Cubs coming in and sweeping the Mets. You think about the loss at Colorado. You think about the loss to the Reds. You think about the loss to the Marlins in Game 1 here … There's a lot of good things that there are to take out of this season."
Ultimately, the Mets downfall was their bullpen. New York's struggling bullpen was an issue in nearly each of those losses mentioned by Esiason. If the relievers had been a bit better, maybe the team would have had enough to reach the postseason.
Another point of recent discussion has been whether Jacob deGrom deserves to repeat as NL Cy Young winner. DeGrom pitched well again Wednesday night as he went seven innings without allowing a run. On the season, he is 11-8 with a 2.43 ERA.
Gregg Giannotti thinks that De Grom will win the Cy Young again, especially because this year he was winning games that really mattered as his team was still in contention.
"These games mattered this year. Remember last year, that one of the knocks against Jacob de Grom was 'well, he's doing it in these games that don't matter because the Mets have been out of it so long' … which I thought was nonsense, because I thought it was even harder for him to pitch as well as he did with a crap team behind him."
Esiason, who has been a Mets fan his entire life, then shared his regret that de Grom's team doesn't allow him to get more wins, even if that stat isn't as important as it once was.
"It's too bad he can't get the wins that he deserves … and I know that doesn't mean much today, but when they go back twenty years from now and they look at his win total, and let's say it's 150 or whatever it turns out to be, they're going to say 'man, he only won that many games?'"
Click on the audio player above to listen to the full opening from Thursday's "Boomer and Gio" show.
