Billy Eppler’s Mets Bullpen Answers Are Insufficient

The real truth in most of Buck Showalter’s comments come a sentence or two after his original answer. Such was the case again Tuesday afternoon, when he responded to a question about his relationship with owner Steve Cohen by lauding Cohen’s involvement and dedication to the Mets before offering this nugget that sounded like a rumble of thunder ahead of Cohen’s plans to speak to the media today.

“He’s frustrated — very competitive man, trust me, very competitive man,” Showalter said. “Not afraid to ask ‘Why?’ You’d better have those answers.”

Cohen may be like most Mets fans and decide he doesn’t like Showalter’s answers as to why the Mets — who are 36-43 and 8 1/2 games behind the Dodgers in the race for the NL’s final wild card spot — are on pace to become the most disappointing team in franchise history.

But at least Showalter offers up a detailed explanation — albeit more often in the more relaxed setting of a pregame press conference than in the edgy aftermath of another only-the-Mets loss — that explain the process, even if the result wasn’t the one anyone desired.

Billy Eppler’s the one who should be worried about Cohen asking “Why?” which is why Eppler, who maintains a low profile even by the standards of the modern elusive baseball executive, emerged from his bunker later Tuesday afternoon.

Much of Eppler’s 21-minute press conference in the Mets dugout felt like the baseball equivalent of a teenager studying for a big test in front of his parents the day before progress reports are issued. Not that we’d know anything about that.

Only Cohen knows if Eppler’s timely show of accountability — followed by the Mets most complete win in weeks, a 7-2 victory over the Brewers — will soften the message he delivers today, or if it will decrease the heat on Eppler and Showalter.

But even a relatively easy win contained a subtle indictment of the biggest issue facing the Mets and by extension Eppler: The construction of the bullpen even before Edwin Diaz was likely lost for the season with a torn patella tendon suffered while celebrating a win in the World Baseball Classic.

Jeff Brigham, one of the optionable relievers signed by Eppler, gave up two runs in the eighth and exited with runners at the corners before Dominic Leone retired the final four batters, three by strikeout.

The Mets might have been in real trouble if David Peterson, who had an 8.08 ERA in his first seven starts before being sent to Triple-A Syracuse in mid-May, hadn’t become just the fourth starter this season to throw at least six scoreless innings.

That Peterson is on a list that does not include surefire Hall of Famer Justin Verlander underlines the inconsistency and lack of length provided by the Mets’ rotation. Mets starters are averaging just 5.08 innings per outing, down from 5.42 innings per outing last year.

Such a decrease is jarring given the talent in the Mets’ rotation, but it shouldn’t be a surprise. Verlander is 40, fellow future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer turns 39 next month and Carlos Carrasco is 36. Jose Quintana, who hasn’t thrown a big league pitch yet due to the rib injury he suffered in spring training, is 34. Rookie Kodai Senga is 30 and pitched 1340 2/3 innings in Japan.

Eppler said the Mets build in some aging-related regression for their starters and that he believed they had five quality experienced high-leverage relievers in Diaz, right-handers David Robertson, Adam Ottavino and Drew Smith and left-hander Brooks Raley. But Ottavino and Smith have struggled to a 4.06 ERA, leaving Showalter with only Robertson and Raley as consistently reliable relievers.

And even a healthy and productive quintet of Diaz, Robertson, Ottavino, Smith and Raley left the Mets with little margin for the middle innings if the starters didn’t provide their extended length. The Mets’ 15 non-leverage relievers — a group that includes infielder Luis Guillorme, who threw a scoreless inning of mop-up duty in a 10-0 loss to the Brewers on Apr. 3 — have combined to post a 5.11 ERA. Eleven of those pitchers aren’t on the active roster as of today.

Asked twice about the construction of the bullpen even with Diaz, Eppler twice said the Mets felt good about the construction of their bullpen before Diaz got hurt.

“When you lose Edwin, you lose a critical element, one of the biggest contributors on your team — you lose him and then that bullpen gets stretched and they get put into different roles or they get asked to pitch more frequently because now you have less candidates to pitch in those high-leverage situations,” Eppler said. “And then when you compound that with starters that maybe aren’t going quite as deep, it’s kind of like pressure or forces on both ends that are kind of contributing to it.”

Such an answer didn’t suffice Monday night, when the Mets fell to the Brewers 2-1. Verlander grinded through five innings and 100 pitches before Smith — pitching for the first time since he was suspended 10 games for having sticky stuff on his hands prior to facing the Yankees on June 13 — gave up a two-run homer to Joey Wiemer in the sixth.

Afterward, Showalter offered another telling answer deep within an answer, one that indicated he and Eppler might be close to rebooting the Bobby Valentine-Steve Phillips mismatched buddy comedy of the late ‘90s and early ‘00s.

“We had three hits and scored one run and I’m not going to hang this on ‘Smitty,’” Showalter said. “We should be able to create some margin for error for a guy coming back. We’re short in the pen again tonight, physically, because of some short outings.”

There were few such revealing nuggets within Eppler’s address filled with baseball corporate speak. But as he prepared to exit the dugout, he accidentally provided a glimpse into how Cohen might be feeling about his general manager ahead of today’s progress report, err, press conference.

“I think we’re sharing a lot of the same emotions,” Eppler said. “We talk pretty regularly, communicate everyday. We talked this winter time everyday, too. So it’s not different.

“But I think the feelings are different than this winter.”