Mets' bullpen elite? Shutting down Braves just another example

NEW YORK -- In one area, at least, the Mets have been elite.

For most of this season, New York’s offense has scuffled. Its rotation members have been questionable, particularly when it comes to pitching deep into games. But its bullpen has picked up much of the slack, as it did Sunday in an 8-1 win over the Braves at Citi Field. Four Mets relievers, including A.J. Minter and Huascar Brazobán, closed out the victory to ensure another brief start from Freddy Peralta wouldn’t come back to haunt them.

Thanks to a four-run rally in the first inning (in which the Mets benefitted from a bizarre throwing error on a ball that ricocheted off a pole in foul ground), as well as back-to-back homers from A.J. Ewing and Marcus Semien in the fifth, the Mets carried a five-run lead into the back half of the game. From there, manager Carlos Mendoza turned to two of his lower-leverage relievers, Cionel Pérez and Daniel Duarte, who combined on 2 1/3 scoreless innings.

Minter followed with two outs in the eighth, and Brazobán -- Mendoza’s bullpen Swiss Army knife -- handled the ninth without issue. That gave the Mets a series win against the Braves, who have the best record in the Majors.

Atlanta also features the Majors' best bullpen ERA, though the Mets aren’t far behind. At game’s end, New York ranked fourth with a 3.30 relief ERA -- a figure that would be even lower if not for several poor bulk relief performances earlier this season from David Peterson, Sean Manaea and Jonah Tong.

“We’re always ready,” Minter said. “There’s no egos down there in the bullpen. Whenever Mendy decides to put us [in], we’re going to come in and do our job. And we have a lot of guys that can do a lot of different things -- throw multiple innings, come in and get four outs and obviously throw in high-leverage situations. It’s pretty rare to have, where a lot of guys can do a lot of those different things. So it’s been good for us.”

On Sunday, for example, midway through a stretch of 10 consecutive games without an off-day, the performances of Pérez and Duarte allowed Mendoza to avoid both closer Devin Williams, who had thrown 33 pitches on Friday night, and setup man Luke Weaver, who is riding an 18-inning scoreless streak.

“They’ve been huge, working as a unit, understanding roles and their assignment each and every day,” Mendoza said. “Coming in, their mentality is to get the three outs that we’re asking them to get, or on occasions obviously multiple innings. I think it’s trusting each other, knowing they have each other’s back, that if somebody has [a bad] day, somebody else is going to come in and pick him up.”

From the moment president of baseball operations David Stearns let Edwin Díaz walk in free agency, replacing him with Williams, the Mets’ bullpen came under a microscope. This group did not seem much different from the one that finished 15th in the Majors with a 3.93 ERA last season. The road to improvement was not obvious.

But despite some hiccups from Williams, most things have gone right for Mets relievers. Brazobán has been invaluable to the Mets, serving as an opener, a middle reliever and a leverage arm. So has Austin Warren, a former waiver claim who has stayed in the Majors largely because he’s been so effective. In recent weeks, the Mets have also relied heavily on pitchers like Pérez and Duarte, who came to New York on Minor League deals. That’s allowed them to save their most crucial arms -- Williams, Weaver, Brooks Raley and Minter -- for when they’ve needed them most.

Duarte may become a roster casualty Monday to clear space for Tobias Myers, another versatile reliever who will pitch the first 2-3 innings of the Mets’ series opener against the Reds.

After that, the rest of them will surely try to pick up the slack.

“We’re all pretty competitive, so I think we all want to be the best down there,” Minter said. “And so when one person does good, the next guy coming in after him wants to be just as good. It kind of has that trickle effect where that rubs off on different guys. Weaver’s been great, Devin’s been great. I think it just trickles down from there.”