From reeling to dealing? Mets know break-up time is coming soon

New York Mets manager Terry Collins pondered the tattered state of his once-formidable pitching staff and offered a statement that encapsulated the upheaval the club has endured in what increasingly looks like a lost year.

“When we came into the season, Sports Illustrated had those guys on the cover,” Collins said, “and I don’t even know where they all are right now.”

The cover photo depicting hard-throwing starters Matt Harvey and Jacob deGrom alongside closer Jeurys Familia actually ran before the 2016 season, but Collins could be forgiven if he’s experiencing déjà vu with the Mets suffering critical pitching injuries for the second year in a row.

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The difference this time is they don’t seem to have much of a chance of recovering and making a run at a third consecutive playoff appearance.

Even after completing their second series sweep of the season by beating the free-falling San Francisco Giants 8-2 on Sunday, the Mets remain 11 games behind the National League East-leading Washington Nationals. The wild-card spots, firmly in control of NL West teams, are even less attainable.

It’s no wonder general manager Sandy Alderson essentially acknowledged the club would be in sell mode in the weeks leading up to the trade deadline when he told news reporters over the weekend, “We have to be realistic about where we are.”

New York’s fourth-place standing and 34-41 record would have been hard to imagine in early April, when the team was regarded as a strong challenger to the Nationals for division supremacy.

World Series participants in 2015, the Mets featured an enviable rotation headed by Noah Syndergaard, deGrom and Harvey, who combined to allow two runs over 182/3 innings in the season’s first three games.

Now Syndergaard (lat muscle tear) and Harvey (shoulder stress) are in the midst of extended stays on the disabled list. Fellow starters Steven Matz and Zack Wheeler have missed time as well. DeGrom has bounced back from several rough starts to go 7-3 with a 3.71 ERA, but he’s one of the few bright spots on a staff that entered Sunday with a 5.02 ERA, second worst in the NL.

Last week’s four-game sweep at the hands of the Los Angeles Dodgers further cemented the Mets’ reality, especially when they gave up 15 home runs while scoring a total of 11 runs. They were simply not in the Dodgers’ league.

“The bottom line is we haven’t performed as well as we’d like,” outfielder Jay Bruce said. “We understand injuries are part of that, but we also understand no one really cares that people are injured and that’s why we’re not really winning. All that matters is the wins and losses.”

And since those are not tilting in the Mets’ favor, the next step might be to extract whatever trade value they can from the veterans on the roster. Infielder Asdrubal Cabrera has beaten the team to the punch by demanding a trade after learning his contract option for 2018 would not be picked up and being moved from shortstop to second base.

His value might be limited, but other pending free agents such as Bruce — who leads the club with 20 homers and 52 RBI — fellow outfielder Curtis Granderson and reliever Addison Reed might fetch prospects in return. First baseman Lucas Duda and injured second baseman Neil Walker are slated to become free agents as well.

Bruce, a three-time All-Star who spent his first 91/2 seasons with the Cincinnati Reds before being traded to New York on Aug.1, has a sense of what to expect in the weeks before the July31 trade deadline.

“Our team fits the mold of a team that could be busy,” Bruce said. “The goal is always for the franchise to improve, and if that means moving guys in order to gain some talent for the future, then that’s the move they have to make. Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised at all. That’s just part of the game.”

So are injuries, though usually not at the rate and scope the Mets pitching staff has sustained the last two years. In 2016, the unlikely duo of Seth Lugo and Robert Gsellman came to the rescue and helped the club earn a wild-card spot. This year, Lugo missed the first two-plus months rehabbing a torn elbow ligament and Gsellman has struggled to a 6.04 ERA.

And Familia, who set a franchise record with 51 saves last year, was suspended for 15 games because of an incident of domestic violence, then was lost — possibly for the season — after having surgery to remove a blood clot from his right shoulder.

“But you know what? The expectations don’t go away,” Collins said. “People don’t say, ‘Wow, they don’t have those guys. Things change.’ That’s not the mentality, especially not in our market.”

The encouraging news for Mets fans is the core of the staff — Syndergaard, deGrom, Harvey, Wheeler, Matz and Familia — remains under team control and, given their youth, can be expected to contribute significantly next year. Plus, New York has about $65 million in expiring contracts coming off the books, which might open room for pursuing free agents.

The bad news is, there’s more than half a season left for a team going nowhere. But, hey, there’s always the possibility of Tim Tebow’s next promotion to keep fans interested.

GALLERY: MLB photo of the day