Mets' need for reliable right-handed DH exposed in loss to Marlins

Jesus Luzardo may well be an emerging star for the Marlins, so it’s not a shock the Mets were shut down by him into the sixth inning of a 2-1 loss in Miami. But let’s not ignore the obvious either:

The Fighting Showalters have a hole in their lineup against left-handed pitching, otherwise known as the absence of a dependable right-handed DH.

This is not a recent development, as you know. The Mets were hoping Darin Ruf would prove in spring training that he could bounce back from his disastrous two months in Queens last season after coming over in the trade from the San Francisco Giants.

Only that turned out to be wishful thinking.

Ok, so give them credit for releasing Ruf at the end of spring training, eating his $3 million salary they owe him for the 2023 season, but that doesn’t change the fact they made a mistake thinking last year was a fluke. And now they may well pay for it.

The Mets have had their issues against left-handed pitching going back to last season, which is why they need another big right-handed bat.

The combination of Mark Canha and Tommy Pham, one in the outfield, the other at DH, just doesn’t look like a real good answer against lefties, and Buck Showalter doesn’t have any other realistic options on the major league roster.

Look, it’s certainly not any kind of catastrophe. The Mets believe that either Francisco Alvarez or Mark Vientos, or perhaps both, could play a significant role in providing the lineup with right-handed power, at some point during the season.

And even if that scenario doesn’t develop by midseason or so, the Mets will be in a much better position to trade prospects for an impact bat than they were last summer.

Of course, they could also need a quality reliever to help provide late-inning depth that Edwin Diaz’s injury reduced dramatically.

Perhaps most significantly, the Mets know they’ve got a good team, one that is almost certainly going to be in the heat of the battle for the NL East race or, at the very least, a wild-card spot by mid-summer, and the Philadelphia Phillies last year were proof that it’s all about getting into the postseason and getting hot at the right time.

In other words, they believe they’ve got plenty of time to figure this DH thing out, and maybe they’re right.

Still, at age 34 Cahna is coming off a so-so season that he admitted this spring to being disappointed with, especially hitting only 13 home runs.

Likewise, Pham, at age 35, is coming off a mediocre season that saw him hit 17 home runs in 144 games and produce a .686 OPS.

Should they have signed someone like J.D. Martinez to fill the hole as the RH DH? They didn’t want another 35-year old on a roster that already has plenty of age, and that’s understandable, especially as strongly as they feel about Alvarez, Vientos, and Brett Baty as well.

You can surely make the argument they should have started the season with one of their rookies. Yet Alvarez didn’t hit at all during spring training and needs more time behind the plate in the minors, and while Vientos made a strong case for himself with the bat, it’s worth remembering he looked overmatched during his brief time in the majors last season.

I would argue that Baty was the guy to keep. He looked the most ready, improving his defense at third base enough to impress Showalter and Eric Chavez while continuing to show that he has a major-league bat.

As a left-handed hitter he wouldn’t have been the best fit, but even last year during his stint with the Mets he had some tough at-bats against lefties like Max Fried, so maybe a combination of Baty and Eduardo Escobar at third base and DH would have been a better lineup than they have now against lefties.

Again, for the moment it’s only fair to put the spotlight on Luzardo, who was nasty on Friday night in Miami, sitting around 97 mph with his fastball, touching 99, and showing a good change-up and slider as well while holding the Mets to two hits in his 5 2/3 innings.

As Alonso told reporters after the game, “He was excellent all night. He had everything working.”

Still, it also seems fair to say that Canha and Pham each have a rather short leash, at least as far as they’ll be judged by fans and media.

If all goes according to the Mets’ plan, however, the ballclub will win enough to justify their slow-play approach to this whole right-handed DH problem, and by June or July they’ll get that long-awaited boost from their farm system to prove more pop.

It’s only if the Mets make a habit of struggling against left-handed pitching and are slow to get out of the gate overall that their patience will be much harder to defend.