Things are pretty hunky dory in Mets land after a weekend sweep that put the Phillies even further in their rearview mirror. When workhorse reliever Drew Smith departed Sunday’s game with an injury to his throwing hand, though, the Mets were dealt another potentially debilitating card.
The 28-year-old tried using his bare hand to snare a ball in the seventh inning. It not only clanged off his exposed flesh for a hit, it also dislocated the pinky on Smith’s all-important right hand. After throwing an understandable fit of rage upon realizing what he’d done, Smith told reporters later that he immediately feared the worst.
“Luckily it wasn’t broken,” he said. “I honestly thought it was broken on the mound, just by the way it looked. Dodged a bullet. We’re going to try to avoid the [injured list], maybe see how it responds in the next couple of days.”
Much of the frustration that Smith showed after his reactionary mistake came from exactly that, knowing that his baseball instincts overtook everything he’s been taught about fielding the ball.
“You know as a pitcher you’re not supposed to do that,” Smith said of barehanding a ball that was hit 94.5 mph. “It’s just reaction. I actually did it last week in Colorado on a similar play, luckily it didn’t hit my hand. I walked in the dugout and [pitching coach Jeremy Hefner] literally told me ‘Don’t do that.’ We talked about it, and I just did it again, and this time it got me. Needless to say, I don’t think I’ll be doing that again.”
The Mets entered Monday with the biggest division lead in baseball, perched atop the National League East by 8.5 games. Even when things haven’t gone well — injuries have already knocked Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer, Tylor Megill, James McCann and Trevor May off the active roster — the Mets have remained rock steady.
Smith’s 21 relief innings are the most of anyone on the team. He’s not just stacking a lot of innings in low-leverage spots either. He’s pitched exceptionally well in what has rapidly become a career-affirming season. With a 2.57 ERA, 1.05 WHIP and .164 opponents’ batting average, Smith has found a home in big spots toward the end of games. All but two of his appearances this season have started in the seventh inning or later. In situations that Baseball-Reference classifies as “late and close” (seventh inning or later with the batting team tied, ahead by one, or has the tying run at least on deck), the slider-happy righty has only dished out seven hits in 49 plate appearances.
The Mets’ bullpen has started to careen slightly out of control in recent weeks. Starting with the stress reaction in Trevor May’s arm, which came at the beginning of May, the team has had some misfortune out of the pen. Edwin Diaz continues to dazzle, but three other crucial cogs — setup man Adam Ottavino and lefties Joely Rodriguez and Chasen Shreve — have ERA’s above 4.00 at the moment. Not long after May’s injury was discovered, the Mets announced that Sean Reid-Foley needed Tommy John surgery, removing him from the equation for the rest of the season. With the Mets’ bullpen depth already being challenged, a broken finger for Smith would have sent them downhill in a flaming wagon.
Good thing he and the team’s shortstop, who was first on the scene after Smith’s injury occurred, are not medical professionals.
“I looked at [Francisco] Lindor and was like ‘That looks broken,’” Smith remembered and laughed. “He said, ‘Yeah it does.’ We came in and did the X-ray and just popped it back in. The original X-ray showed no breaks.”
Smith’s breakout has coincided with a small but mighty tweak to his repertoire. Never a huge strikeout guy, Smith has seen an uptick in punchouts this season. Heading into the year, he owned a 21.3% strikeout rate in 76.1 MLB innings. Through his first 21 innings of 2022, that rate has increased to 27.7%, and an offseason alteration is to thank.
In 2021, the first season of Smith’s big-league career where he registered 40 innings, he relied on a cutter as his main secondary pitch. This season, pitch tracking data shows that the cutter has been completely canceled, with Smith instead throwing a slider of slightly decreased velocity. That slider has been the killer pitch in 16 of his 23 strikeouts and has caused a miss 35.8% of the time a batter swings at it. Smith told the Daily News that the cutter and slider are essentially the same pitch with the same grip but a minor difference in shape. He explained that he’s getting on the side of it now rather than trying to “stay behind it” like he did when it was acting more like a cutter.
Smith, who said this is his first time ever dislocating anything, is now playing a “waiting game” with the swelling. Beginning on Monday, the Mets have three games with the Washington Nationals, a team bringing up the rear in the NL East. Then they head out for a brutal test of their validity, playing three straight West Coast series against the Dodgers, Padres and Angels. Should Smith be able to avoid the IL, taking the Nats series to repose in preparation for the road trip is a prudent move. While rookies Stephen Nogosek and Colin Holderman have yet to allow an earned run yet, Smith is a much more trustworthy option when fully healthy.
Smith has been one of the strongest beams in the Mets’ bridge to Diaz. They can ill afford to lose him for any significant amount of time, and even a non-IL absence is enough to conjure up some queasiness. Judging by everything he said after Sunday’s game, though, the Dallas Baptist University product should be okay after some basic rest and relaxation. That’s huge for the Mets, massive for Buck Showalter’s mental health, and even bigger in terms of the trickle down effects on the rest of the pitchers in the organization.
Let’s just make sure everyone’s on the same page about how to field a comebacker.
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