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The New York Mets finished 101-61 in the 2022 regular season. Unfortunately for them, the Atlanta Braves also went 101-61, and managed to avoid the wild-card round based on a 10-9 advantage in head-to-head games.
The Mets lost a wild-card series 2-1 to San Diego. In November 2022, it was announced the Mets' Buck Showalter had been voted NL Manager of the Year.
The sensational work of closer Edwin Diaz was key to that outstanding Mets' season. He appeared in 61 games, saved 32, had a 1.31 ERA and 118 strikeouts in 62 innings.
Owner Steve Cohen's euphoric spending for the wondrous 2023 season that he anticipated started with a five-year, $102 million, no-trade contract to Diaz in early November — the largest deal ever for a reliever.
On March 15, 2023, Diaz closed out a 5-2 victory for Puerto Rico over the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic.
In the hectic celebration that followed, Diaz suffered a right knee injury. He was taken off the field in a wheelchair. The injury was a complete patellar tendon tear that cost him the entire 2023 season.
The 2023 Mets went 75-87. Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander were traded in a fire sale. Showalter was fired at season's end. Cohen announced he would rein in spending.
A year later, on March 17, Twins closer Jhoan Duran was warming up to throw a live batting practice session in Hammond Stadium in Fort Myers, Fla., that magical place of sunny weather and horrendous traffic.
Duran had become a dominant closer for the Twins starting with his first save in May 2022. He had 84 strikeouts in 62⅓ innings in 2023.
On this St. Patrick's Day, Duran pulled a right oblique muscle and will not be in Kansas City when his team opens its season Thursday.
OK, there are fine reasons not to compare losing Duran to open the 2024 season with the Mets' losing Diaz for the entire 2023 season:
First, the Twins are coming off 87 wins — not 101 — and were gifted a romp to a division title in the weak AL Central. Second, starting the season without their premier closer certainly cannot be credited with throwing a wrench into a wild spending spree by Twins ownership.
But here's the deal:
The Twins described the injury as a "moderate oblique strain," but how moderate can it be if there were nearly two weeks left in spring training when it occurred, and the optimistic view is that Duran will miss at least a month of the regular season?
Phil Miller, half of the Star Tribune's exceptional ballwriting team, was seeking an explanation for Duran's incredible velocity this spring and a pitching guru traced it to the tremendous thump with which Duran's front foot lands.
You can't say, "Land more gently." That's his delivery — a blessing for getting strikeouts, but you wonder, if an oblique could talk, might it say, "A hundred-and-three again, Jhoan. Really?"
Duran is just the poster for a horrible spring training for this team's pitching situation.
The reason this team won 87 in 2023 was reliable starting pitching that reduced the workload for an effective bullpen. The reason the Twins won 78 in 2022 was terrible starting pitching that overtaxed an adequate collection of relievers.
As has been repeated constantly, the Twins did nothing to replace Sonny Gray, or even Kenta Maeda. In the search to criticize this, they have been vilified for bringing in another injured starter in Anthony DeSclafani.
One more time: The Twins knew they were likely to get nothing from DeSclafani. Seattle made the Twins take him to complete the Jorge Polanco trade, just as San Francisco had made Seattle take him earlier in the offseason to complete the Robbie Ray trade.
The Twins have an iffy rotation behind Pablo López, and unless David Festa can get on the fast track, nothing behind the season-opening crew.
Many fewer quality innings from starters will put stress on what's now an injury-wracked bullpen.
Duran is the big loss, which probably won't cost the Twins as much as the '23 Mets losing Diaz, since that would be 26 fewer wins, which would put the 2024 Twins at 61, and I'll go out on the limb and say these Twins will have at least a dozen more wins than that.
