The Mets need Edwin Díaz to look like this

As Edwin Díaz says, so do they Mets.

It's a refrain we've heard from the Mets media all season, and its value can be questioned. After all, how valuable can a pitcher who throws about 60 innings a season be?

Turns out it's pretty valuable… at least when the pressure is increased.

That's because the Mets' bullpen has undoubtedly been the least reliable part of the team so far this postseason. It has given up at least one run in every Mets postseason game except one, the 8-4 Game 1 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers in the Wild Card Series. Due to independent pitching (4.48), the Mets bullpen is the third worst of all playoff teams, with the only two worse pens (San Diego and Philadelphia) being a big reason these teams are no longer in the playoffs.

And there are few remedies the Mets can rely on. According to FIP, Reed Garrett (1.37) has been the Mets' best reliever so far this postseason, and he's barely in the 25th percentile of 2024 playoff relievers 32 are exactly in the middle of the field in terms of FIP technology.

Considering how poorly the final two weeks of the Díaz experience have gone, it's astonishing that he's ranked so highly. In his final appearance of the regular season, Díaz allowed three hits and two earned runs, allowing the Atlanta Braves to take the lead in the most important game of the regular season. A franchise-changing home run from Francisco Lindor gave Díaz a chance for redemption – which he made – and gave the netminder the bittersweet combination of save and victory in the box.

Things didn't go much better for Díaz in the postseason either. He got five crucial outs in the decisive game against the Brewers, but walked two batters and appeared shaky throughout. Then he blew a lead by giving up three runs in the eighth inning against the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 2 of the Division Series, a play the offense couldn't bail out (no matter how hard Mark Vientos tried).

It would have been understandable to give up on Díaz at the moment, but two things still worked in his favor:

1. Mets manager Carlos Mendoza has a surprisingly large circle of trust and a long leash (Phil Maton has thrown four innings this postseason, for heaven's sake).
2. Díaz's fastball could be back.

In the Game 2 loss to the Phillies, Díaz threw 25 pitches and 16 sliders, although it is not uncommon for him to throw his slider more often than his fastball. In 2022, for example, he threw the slider 58.1% of the time, and in terms of run value, it was one of the most effective throws in all of baseball.

But 16 sliders out of 25 pitches doesn't look like a pitcher who's simply using his best weapon – it looks like someone who's lost all confidence in his fastball.

Luckily, that confidence returned in the deciding Game 4, when Díaz threw the fastball in 17 of his 23 pitches (perhaps because the Phillies had had success against the slider before). And after walking the first two batters, Díaz blew out his final three batters and got Kyle Schwarber to swing through a perfectly scored 101.1 mph heater that he (and no other batter) could touch.

This is the stuff that Díaz needs to lean on, and this is the stuff that can help a shaky Mets bullpen find its footing.

Díaz's Game 2 against the Los Angeles Dodgers was very similar to his game-winning hit in Game 4 against the Phillies. He gave up a leadoff single to Andy Pages and a (probably advisable) walk to Shohei Ohtani to face the core of the Dodgers' dominance with no one out.

After starting Mookie Betts with a pair of sliders, Díaz threw 13 straight fastballs to Betts, Teoscar Hernández and Freddie Freeman – all real threats to hit home runs – and none of them could do anything about it. His final pitch of the day was the game-winning slider to Freeman, but that wasn't the highlight.

He threw 29 pitches against the Dodgers, 18 of which were fastballs, and none of them were put into play. Shut things down. But perhaps the most encouraging part of his Game 2 performance was his confidence on the mound.

Díaz likes to work quickly. With no one on base, Díaz had the fastest pace between pitches (13.8 seconds) of anyone left in the Mets' bullpen this season. But with runners, Díaz becomes one of the fastest in baseball (15.9 seconds), in part because he refuses to keep runners on base.

When Díaz got his fastball rolling against Betts, he stepped on the gas. He worked so quickly that at times he seemed annoyed by how much time batters wasted between pitches. It's as if Díaz has an inner counter that tells him he has to do it Go! Go! Go when the fastball works and it's hard to argue with the results.

This is the kind of show that can boost the confidence of an occasionally unsettled closer and boost the performance of an oft-tattooed bullpen. With two runners on, no one out, and arguably baseball's most fearsome forward waiting to explode their home crowd, Díaz transformed himself into an unbeatable monster.

Díaz may not be the Mets' most important piece of the puzzle, despite what Mets writers and critics may say. But no Mets player may be under more pressure to perform than him this postseason, and it looks like he's warming up to the spotlight.