New York Mets: Jeurys Familia's Save Streak Was Misleading
Brad Penner, USATI

New York Mets closer Jeurys Familia‘s save streak of 52 regular season games was misleading. Now, he must regroup.

From the get go, I didn’t like keeping track of Jeurys Familia‘s save streak, dating back to last year.

Each year is like a book, not a chapter of a book, a completed story. I don’t like the carry over, because what’s the point of even calling it a completed season at that point if the stats are just going to carry over anyway.

I got on people for Jake Arrieta‘s win streak, so in order to not be hypocritical I wasn’t boasting about Familia’s stats from last season that carried over. Besides, both streaks carrying over from last year are missing one all important thing: the playoffs.

Arrieta won 20 regular season decisions in a row, but many people were highlighting the fact that Arrieta hadn’t lost since last July (when his streak was still intact). They must’ve forgotten about Game 2 of the NLCS.

Jeurys Familia blew three games in the World Series.

Realistically, I only put Game 1 on him. Games 4 and 5 were due to Murphy turning back into a pumpkin on Halloween night and Lucas Duda‘s inability to throw a baseball 90 feet.

The only reason Familia’s streak stayed intact this season is because of the rules of save situations. Let’s not forget the lead he blew against the Los Angeles Dodgers when he gave up four runs in the ninth.

This is not a knock on Familia or Arrieta. Arrieta has been one of the best starting pitchers in the game over the past year and Familia has developed into a great closer for the Mets. This is merely addressing the point that both of these stats were technically misleading. This argument also highlights the idea that carrying over stats from year to year is kinda silly.

Familia couldn’t have picked a worse time to end the streak – Wednesday night’s game against the St Louis Cardinals. Even yesterday’s game was back breaking as well, after a great Jacob deGrom performance was spoiled, although that one’s more on Terry Collins.

Collins said that Familia was unavailable after Wednesday night’s game, but then elected to use him in Thursday’s debacle (as one of many questionable managing decisions throughout the game).

Familia is a good closer. He will bounce back after these back to back lousy performances. It seems like every save situation he is playing with fire with walking guys and then pulling a Houdini act to escape.

He was bound to get burned eventually.

NEXT: New York Mets: When It Rains, It Pours

I'm a Jets, Islanders and Mets fan from Long Island. I'm the General Manager of my college radio station WFTU Riverhead where I also do a sports talk show called "This Week In Sports". In addition to ESNY I'm a co-editor of EyesOnIsles.com. "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take -Wayne Gretzky" -Michael Scott