NEW YORK — The low point for the Mets’ starting rotation — and maybe, consequently, their season — came 16 days ago when Justin Verlander was booed during his home debut in a lopsided loss to the Rays.
In the 13 games since, the rotation has found its footing, and thus the team its ballast. Wednesday night, Carlos Carrasco submitted his second consecutive solid start in New York’s 4-1 win over Philadelphia. Carrasco held the Phillies to a run on six hits over six innings. The Mets have held the Phillies to a run on 11 hits over 18 frames the past two nights.
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The Mets moved to 15-0 when their starter finishes the sixth inning. This is the eighth time in the past 13 games a pitcher has met that criterion. You can do the math for how rare it was in the first 43.
“That’s a good formula to win baseball games,” said Mark Canha, who drove in all four New York runs. “You’ve got to win games all kinds of ways, but it makes it that much easier.”
Entering Wednesday, major-league teams won 65.2 percent of the time when their starter went six innings. The Mets are the only undefeated team in such spots, but their starters have gone six innings less often than all but three other teams.
Of course, that rocky weekend in Denver is barely in the rearview mirror. No one is claiming the Mets are fixed. They just feel a little less broken now.
The same can be said of Carrasco since coming back from the injured list for a bone spur in his elbow. New York has won each of his three starts since, and he has allowed two runs in 12 2/3 innings over the last two. The right-hander isn’t going to be contending for All-Star berths the way he did during his best years in Cleveland. But he can still be a steady member of a winning rotation, as he was throughout last season.
“My elbow’s back to normal and feeling really good,” Carrasco said. The changeup he couldn’t throw without pain in April was excellent on the final day of May. “I had it for strikeouts. I had it for groundballs.”
“His arm is moving better,” manager Buck Showalter said. “He’s throwing the ball through the target instead of to it.”
Just as in Kodai Senga’s gem the night before, Carrasco’s go-to secondary pitch was set up by a better-than-usual fastball. Showalter called it “probably the best pure fastball I’ve seen from him,” and Carrasco agreed. He averaged 93.5 mph on his four-seamer Wednesday, up nearly 2 mph from his season average.
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Abraham Maslow never adapted his hierarchy of needs for a baseball team, but competent starting pitching would be a strong contender for the foundation of that pyramid. For the first several weeks of the season, that base crumbled for New York. Night after night, Mets starters excavated early holes that proved too tall for their offense to escape.
This last stretch has allowed the Mets, as a club, to breathe.
“There’s a lot better tempo to the games,” Showalter said. “It makes defense matter and add-on runs matter.”
It lessens the reliance on a veteran bullpen as well. In these first two wins over Philadelphia, the Mets have followed the offseason blueprint, with the starter handing the ball to the club’s established late-game relievers.
The success of the rotation is not just about Carrasco or Senga. Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer are taking regular turns again. José Quintana’s rehab assignment is on the horizon.
“We like to think it bodes well for the future,” Showalter said.
The high point hasn’t arrived yet. But the Mets hope the low point is firmly in the past.
(Top photo of Carlos Carrasco: Mike Stobe / Getty Images)