PHOENIX — Nearly a fourth of the way into the 2017 season, the identity of the Mets — the team with all those dynamic, young, hard-throwing pitchers — has been distorted beyond recognition.
Those pitchers are now either hurt or, too often, helpless. And as a result, the Mets, who seemed to potentially have the best, and deepest, rotation in baseball going into this season, instead had the worst earned run average in the major leagues — a glaring, unsightly 5.13 — going into Tuesday’s games.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
In 2015, the year when the Mets shook off six straight losing seasons and made it all the way to the World Series, they possessed an average offense but a pitching staff with the fourth-best E.