Luis Severino, who has pitched in 162 games over nine major league seasons, looked over the Mets’ upcoming schedule and couldn’t consider a worse stretch.
“That is the longest road trip I’ve ever seen,” Severino said Wednesday. “It’s going to be tough for us, but that is what we receives a commission for, to go on the market and play every single day.”
Starting Friday might be a run of 10 games in 10 days in 4 different cities across three time zones.
What began as merely an extended trip became an especially grueling one when a May 8 game against the Cardinals was rained out and rescheduled for the lone off day on the trip.
So there might be no break from Anaheim to St. Louis, where the Mets will play one game before heading to Colorado for 3 and ending the voyage in Seattle for 3.
When the Mets finally return home after their Aug. 11 game against the Mariners, they are going to have logged around 8,000 miles within the air.
Even before a transient visit to Missouri was crammed in, Brandon Nimmo had August circled as a difficult month.
Following this 10-game trip, manager Carlos Mendoza’s group will play nine at home before returning to the West Coast for a 10-game journey through San Diego, Arizona and Chicago (to play the White Sox).
“I saw this at first of the season and thought this was going to be an enormous test and a tricky a part of the season,” Nimmo said. “It’s at all times tough with the travel of going to the West Coast. You do it twice in a month, it makes it difficult.
“You’re here for the challenge. But it surely goes to be a challenge.”
A silver lining within the upcoming stretch could possibly be present in the standard of opponent.
The only game against the Cardinals will matter in a good wild-card race. The opposite nine games might be played against teams which can be a combined 144-185, only the Mariners above .500.
Although games within the Denver air might be unpredictable and brutal on pitching staffs.
“I feel we’re going to take this in stride,” Nimmo said. “I’ve been really happy with the way in which guys have battled to this point.
“But there’s absolute confidence that this month goes to be a battle.”
Francisco Lindor is the Mets’ winner of the Heart and Hustle Award, which fits to the “lively players who show a passion for the sport of baseball and best embody the values, spirit and traditions of the sport.”
There’s one winner per team for the award, which is voted on by former players.
The general winner is announced in November.