Summarize and humanize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in English“Such minute draughts blew in through palace windows from the hurricane without. … Secure in the formalities of their lives, in the food and drink at their tables, they could afford to think in terms of politics and not of human sufferings.”—“The Thirty Years War,” C.V. WedgwoodThrough 15 games, the Mets are doing what good teams do. They’re winning series from teams they are better than, and they’re winning games even when their purported strength — their offense — has been in a bit of a slump.Basing big conclusions on 15 games in a baseball season would, of course, be irresponsible. But pondering what longer-term storyline might be presenting itself already, in a way that months from now you’ll look back and nod, saying, “You could tell back in April,” that’s fair game. So let’s examine a few potential possibilities down the line.When will the bottom half of the lineup come around?If it isn’t fair to judge much of anything through 15 games, it’s certainly unfair to judge the Mets’ bottom half of the lineup, which has been missing a pair of important pieces in Francisco Alvarez and Jeff McNeil. (Although Luis Torrens has been about as good as you could hope Alvarez to be with the bat so far.)To this point, the offense as a whole has not been what the Mets want it to be. Pete Alonso is on one of the transcendent hot streaks we really haven’t seen from him since 2022, and Juan Soto’s tepid start — .250 average and just one homer so far — still carries a wRC+ of 132. (Remember, in what’s widely considered Soto’s worst season in 2022, he was still 46 percent better than the average hitter — or better than Alonso’s best season.) Francisco Lindor will be fine, and Brandon Nimmo is looking better than he did at any point in the second half of last season.But the rest of the lineup poses some questions still, ones with less certain answers at this point. While Mark Vientos’ cold start isn’t a problem yet, he wouldn’t be the first hitter to take a step back in his second full season in the majors. Both second base and center field have been absolute black holes with the bat.It’s a credit to the pitching staff, and especially the bullpen, that the Mets are on pace for 108 wins despite scoring a hair over four runs per game. Eventually, that dynamic has to shift. There are no legitimate concerns about the top half of the Mets’ order. But to be a championship contender, they’ll need more from the bottom half eventually.Can the duo of Soto and Alonso do something like this all year?The Mets’ slugging stars have combined for an OPS of .944 through 15 games, nearly 250 points clear of the league average. Alonso, of course, has done the heavy lifting, but even when he slows down, you can imagine Soto picking up his own pace.So it’s not crazy to think that this is about what the Mets can get from their second and third hitters:Kodai Senga’s start on Sunday set a standardSenga sliced through the Athletics on Sunday, eliciting early weak contact to efficiently work through seven innings — the first time any Mets starter saw the seventh this season, and only the third in 15 games that finished even the sixth inning.Entering Sunday, New York starters were averaging an even five innings per start — better than just three other teams in the NL. (That the two major-league teams averaging the fewest innings from their starters are the Dodgers and Padres suggests it’s too early to make a fuss here, as well.) And to this point, no Mets starter has thrown more than 91 pitches in a game; they’re being especially cautious with the workloads.The expectation is that the Mets follow last year’s blueprint. In the first 80 games of the 2024 season, a Mets starter finished the seventh inning just five times. In the next 80, it happened 21 times, as New York became more comfortable leaning on Sean Manaea and Luis Severino and Jose Quintana and David Peterson. To allow the bullpen to sustain some approximation of its current production, the Mets will need that dynamic to play out again — and probably sooner, considering they’re likely to spend more time this season in a six-man rotation (and a shorter bullpen) than they did last year.The expositionThe Mets won the rubber game over the Athletics on Sunday behind Senga. New York has won four consecutive series and is 10-5 on the season, good for first by a game in the National League East.The Twins salvaged the series finale Sunday against the Tigers to halt a three-game losing streak. Minnesota has dropped every series but one (the one against the White Sox) and is 5-11. The Mets start a three-game series in Minnesota on Monday.The Cardinals took two of three at home versus the Phillies to move to 7-8. They host the Astros for three before traveling to Queens.The pitching possiblesat MinnesotaRHP Clay Holmes (1-1, 4.30 ERA) vs. RHP Joe Ryan (1-1, 2.65 ERA)RHP Tylor Megill (2-1, 0.63) vs. RHP Bailey Ober (0-1, 7.11)RHP Griffin Canning (1-1, 4.20) vs. RHP David Festa (0-0, 0.00) vs. St. LouisLHP David Peterson (1-1, 2.70) vs. RHP Andre Pallante (2-0, 2.20)RHP Kodai Senga (2-1, 1.06) vs. RHP Miles Mikolas (0-2, 9.00)RHP Clay Holmes vs. LHP Matthew Liberatore (1-1, 3.93)RHP Tylor Megill vs. RHP Sonny Gray (2-0, 4.50)Injury updates
Mets’ injured list Player Injury Elig. ETA Left hamate fracture4/3AprilRight oblique strain4/3AprilRight ACL rehab4/3AprilRight knee inflammation4/8AprilRight oblique strain4/8MayRight lat strain4/8JuneTommy John surgery5/232026Tommy John surgery5/232026Left shoulder fracture5/232026
Red = 60-day ILOrange = 15-day ILBlue = 10-day IL• Jose Siri may need a stint on the IL after fouling a ball off his left shin on Saturday night. Siri was still on crutches on Sunday.• Jesse Winker hasn’t started any of the last five games with flu-like symptoms. He did pinch-hit on Saturday.• Alvarez and McNeil were each in the St. Lucie lineup on Sunday for their rehab assignments. It was Alvarez’s third game and McNeil’s second. Alvarez has to catch back-to-back games before the Mets will recall him.• Paul Blackburn is set for another bullpen session early this week.Minor-league scheduleTriple-A: Syracuse vs. Buffalo (Toronto)Double-A: Binghamton at Reading (Philadelphia)High-A: Brooklyn at Aberdeen (Baltimore)Low-A: St. Lucie vs. Tampa (New York, AL)Last week in Mets• Brett Baty’s latest and maybe last chance isn’t going well• What does Vlad Guerrero Jr.’s extension mean for Pete Alonso?• New minor-league hitting coordinator Daniel Nicolaisen took an unusual path to the job — through softball• How the Mets’ bullpen has led the way• Tyler Kepner on the late Octavio Dotel, and Zach Meisel on why he folded Dotel’s baseball card in his wallet for years• TWIM: Carrying over the good vibesA note on the epigraphMy high school history teacher had taught us to memorize a few quotes from famous figures, malleable enough to fit most any essay you’d have to write for an AP test. And so 20 years after I graduated, I can still recite, “Power naturally grows, because human passions are insatiable — but that power alone can grow which is already too great, that which is unchecked,” from John Adams. (Although I did just look it up certain it was Madison. Oops.)But these lines from C.V. Wedgwood’s “The Thirty Years War” — a book I’ve recommended in this space before and will again because it’s an absolute masterpiece, written this well throughout — struck me immediately when I read them in 2017. There was no need to memorize that first sentence; it stuck right away, discouraging in its near-universal applicability to historical events.Trivia timeBy wins above replacement (according to Baseball-Reference) with both franchises, the three best players to suit up for both the Mets and Twins are all left-handed pitchers. Can you name all three?BONUS: What position player owns the most career WAR between tenures in Minnesota and Queens? (The hint here is that he was actually a negative-WAR player while with the Mets.)(I’ll reply to the correct answers in the comments.)(Photo of Pete Alonso: Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)
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