The strange thing about this part of the season is the team has to do everything they can do to win games in order to get their team into the postseason.  However, at the same time, the team is assessing players to find out who could be valuable pieces on the postseason roster.  Accordingly, the manager has to balance finding out something about a player in a pressure situation with making sure the player doesn’t fail and blow the game.

This year Josh Smoker is the embodiment of that conundrum.

After Josh Edgin struggled, the Mets decided to go call-up Smoker and give him his shot to pitch out of the bullpen.  Smoker earned the shot as he had a 1.04 ERA and a 0.92 WHIP in his 14 appearances after the All Star Game.  He was also striking out 11.4 batters per nine innings during that stretch.  Additionally, he had the stuff to pitch in the majors.  According to Brooks Baseball, Smoker throws over 95 MPH with a slider and split that generates a lot of swings and misses.

Still, relying on Smoker was far from a given.  He still had a 4.11 ERA and a 1.47 WHIP in AAA.  It wasn’t just the typical Pacific Coast League inflation.  In his minor league career, Smoker had a 4.58 ERA and a 1.49 WHIP.  Again, while his stuff translated to the majors, it did not translate statistically.  Overall, while there was promise, Smoker was far from a given.

That’s what makes Smoker’s current run with the Mets all the more impressive.

In 15 appearances with the Mets, Smoker has a 4.38 ERA and a 1.135 WHIP while striking out an eye-popping 15.3 batters per nine innings.  As it stands, he has reverse splits with him faring better against right-handed betters better than he does against left-handed batters.  That is not all together unexpected as Smoker was only slightly better against lefties than he was against righties while in AAA this year.  This means that Smoker is more than just a LOOGY, he’s a reliever that can be trusted for a full inning.

Over his past seven appearances he’s more than a pitcher than can be trusted.  He’s a pitcher that can be used in high leverage situations.  In those appearances, Smoker has yet to allow a run while striking out 10 batters in 5.1 innings.  He is limiting batters to a .167 batting average while allowing no extra base hits.  What’s even more impressive with the batting average numbers is Smoker has allowed a .375 BABIP meaning there’s not going to be regression on the balls in play.  Rather, there is promise that he will get even better.  The key to this impressive run is he is throwing 71% of his pitches for strikes.

As Smoker has improved at the major league level, the question is transitioning from whether the Mets can rely upon him at all to what exactly will his role be in the postseason.