The New York Mets opened a four-game series against the Miami Marlins at Citi Field on Friday with the trade deadline now just days away. For a club sitting at 46-63, the weekend may be the last chance fans get to see some players in blue and orange before Monday changes the roster.
That is why Tyrone Taylor is part of the conversation now. A.J. Minter and Taylor were both mentioned as players to watch this weekend, and the Mets may move more than five players off the active roster before Monday night’s game. The deadline is not a distant marker for this team; it is the next hard stop.
The matchup gives the series its edge because the Mets are not playing for a postseason spot, while the Marlins arrive at 55-54 and in third place in the NL East. Even so, Miami has momentum from a sweep of the Phillies, and its last seven series have all ended in sweeps one way or the other. That kind of run is hard to square with a team that had lost 12 games in a row before the Phillies sweep.
New York’s recent form has been just as uneven. The Mets lost 1-0 to the Braves at Citi Field after a well-pitched game between Chris Sale and Christian Scott, and Christian Scott allowed the RBI single by Matt Olson that decided it. Before that, the Mets won a one-run game in the matinee of Wednesday’s doubleheader, and the two games before those were routs in which they beat two first-place teams by sizable margins.
The Marlins’ own story is harder to pin down because it has swung so sharply from one series to the next. They have gone from a disastrous stretch to a sweep of the Phillies, with Griffin Conine giving them a spark since coming off the IL and Sandy Alcantara looking more like the stud he was always projected to be. Max Meyer remains out, but Miami has still found enough to keep itself in the mix.
For the Mets, the uncertainty is more immediate than the standings. The biggest unanswered question is which players will actually be moved before Monday night, and how many will be gone by then. That is what turns Marlins vs Mets from another late-summer series into a roster test with a deadline attached.
