It was bound to happen. The Bench Mob eventually came back to Earth and are now getting hurt themselves, and the offense is scuffling along as the starters reemerge. That this all happened only once the Mets hit the 10-games-over high-water mark and resumed intra-division play is worrisome, moreso given that Alonso, Lindor, Smith or McCann are still looking for some kind of consistency.

Jeff McNeil, Kevin Pillar and Albert Almora came back, Joey Lucchesi, Jordan Yamamoto, Juerys Familia, Tommy Hunter, and Robert Gsellman are out, and now it looks like Jonathan Villar and Tomas Nido might be hurt.

Last night we saw the Mets debut of Jerad Eichoff, the first 43 since the unforgettable Erasmo Ramirez last season. Some guy called Travis Blankenhorn was up and back wearing No. 73. Steven Tarpley (46), Sean Reid-Foley (61) and Yennsy Diaz (64) are back with the group; Mason Williams (70) is designated and Jacob Barnes (40) was designated then traded to Toronto.

My friend Edward raised an interesting point that the 40-man roster as a thing has remained constant despite nearly everything else affecting it (disabled-list assignment lengths, roster sizes etc) all changing–some dramatically so, and it’s made a mess of the Mets. I actually looked this up, it’s the 100th birthday of the 40-man roster as a thing, despite a few tweaks over the years (a 48-man roster to allow for Wartime players in the 1940s; and a brief period before imposition of the player draft in the early 1960s when dumb rules forced clubs to carry prized young talent or risk losing them (the roster size then was 41, not 40).

It’s time to reinvent again.