sad news; Phil Maton deied in a plane crash on his way to…….
Phil Maton has a 4.58 ERA and four saves in parts of eight big league seasons. He needed to post 0.2 in WAR for the Rays this season, per Baseball-Reference, to lift his career mark to 0.1 WAR. He has never worn anything other than no. 88.
In other words, his acquisition Tuesday by the Mets would seem to be the very definition of the type of at-the-margins transaction for which president of baseball operations David Stearns is known.
Except Maton is an upright and breathing major league reliever, which means he just might save the Mets’ season.
Such a statement sounded just a bit less outlandish Tuesday night, when, with Maton presumably on his way to New York, a quartet of relievers nearly managed to ruin one of the best outings of Jose Quintana’s career before the Mets hung on for a 7-5 win over the Nationals.
Quintana tossed seven scoreless innings of one-hit ball — just the fifth time in 320 starts he’s allowed only one hit over seven innings of more — before the Nationals collected five hits while drawing one walk and one hit by pitch against Adam Ottavino, Dedniel Nunez and Reed Garrett. A two-out walk to Jacob Young in the ninth brought the potential tying run on deck and forced Carlos Mendoza to call on hot-and-cold closer Edwin Diaz, who tossed a wild pitch that allowed Young to score from second before he struck out CJ Abrams to finally end the game.
The Mets are 5-4 this month despite the bullpen recording a 10.57 ERA (that’s not a misprint). That’s actually worse than the 8.37 ERA the Mets posted from June 25 through July 5, when Diaz served a 10-game suspension for having illegal substances found on his hand and glove prior to entering against the Cubs on June 23.
Overall this season, Mets relievers have combined to post a 4.24 ERA, which would be the 13th-highest mark in team history.
“I think bullpen performance can be really volatile,” Stearns said Tuesday afternoon. “And bullpen performance can also change very quickly. We’ve seen that in our own team over the course of this year.”
has a 4.58 ERA and four saves in parts of eight big league seasons. He needed to post 0.2 in WAR for the Rays this season, per Baseball-Reference, to lift his career mark to 0.1 WAR. He has never worn anything other than no. 88.
In other words, his acquisition Tuesday by the Mets would seem to be the very definition of the type of at-the-margins transaction for which president of baseball operations David Stearns is known.
Except Maton is an upright and breathing major league reliever, which means he just might save the Mets’ season.
Such a statement sounded just a bit less outlandish Tuesday night, when, with Maton presumably on his way to New York, a quartet of relievers nearly managed to ruin one of the best outings of Jose Quintana’s career before the Mets hung on for a 7-5 win over the Nationals.
