10 things we’ve learned so far this MLB season

9. The Mets were built upon a house of cards

Not since the Generation K days of the mid-1990s has their been a young, homegrown starting rotation this exciting in baseball. Of course, those Mets prospects of Generation K fizzled spectacularly and never materialized into the aces they were supposed to be. After a good run of three seasons, the same may be happening to the group of Noah Syndergaard, Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Steven Matz, and Zack Wheeler.

The decision to shake off an MRI for a tweaked biceps was not the smartest thing Syndergaard could have done, and he will now be out for several months rehabbing a torn lat behind his pitching shoulder. To add insult to injury, the Mets surrendered 23 runs in the game he was injured. When Syndergaard was skipped in the rotation, Harvey was pressed into duty the day after doing a heavy lift to prepare for his regular start.

Matz has barely appeared on an MLB mound the past three years. Wheeler is back from two years away recovering from Tommy John and has a 4.78 ERA in five starts. Harvey has looked even worse than he did last year before being shut down for thoracic outlet surgery. That is not a surgery with a long track record of success, and Harvey’s 5.14 ERA and seven home runs allowed in six starts do not indicate that he will be the next big success story for the procedure. When it goes downhill for a team built around young power pitchers, it goes downhill in a hurry with very little ability to pump the brakes to stop the crash.