As Mets put bow on sudden firing of hitting coaches, another crisis is waiting with Jacob deGrom injury

"It just doesn’t make any sense."

That’s a sentiment expressed often about the Mets, and Tuesday it was Pete Alonso’s turn to invoke the Flushing mantra, doing so in regards to Monday night’s abrupt firing of the hitting coach Chili Davis and assistant Tom Slater.

Of course, the team’s bewilderment over that stunning news -- first learned by Alonso on Twitter -- soon slipped into despair upon the discovery that Jacob deGrom was scratched from Tuesday night’s start at Busch Stadium due to "right side tightness."

On the Mets’ 1-to-10 scale of catastrophic worry, any injury alert involving deGrom immediately pushes the needle to 11, regardless of the known severity, so replacing a pair of hitting coaches already was fast-fading in the rear-view mirror before Tuesday's game was rained out. But as we move forward into the Quattlebaum-Howard Era -- we’re sure you’ve studied up on the coaching duo in the past 24 hours -- there were a few areas still worth exploring as potential indicators of future events.

First off, as it was explained to me, the Davis-Slater firing was not meant as the first domino to fall given the team’s sub-par performance to date, nor a warning shot across the bow of manager Luis Rojas, who was sitting on an 11-12 record before Tuesday’s game against the Cardinals. There was an acknowledgment, however, that the ’21 Mets are expected to be a playoff team, and if that goal veers further off the rails, then Rojas -- who is in his walk year -- would very much be in danger.

"Those are the types of things that I don’t think about," Rojas said before Tuesday’s game. "Because in my view, it’s very disrespectful to the group here to be worried about that before worrying about the team. So that’s not my concern right now."

As for Davis, Sandy Alderson & Co. were hesitant to bring him back anyway this season, and with the team’s brutal offensive start, they found their opening this past week. Alderson and GM Zack Scott had made the decision to fire Davis/Slater after the back-to-back losses to the Red Sox at Citi Field, where the Mets scored a total of one run in those two games while displaying some of the most atrocious at-bats of the young season. But there were logistical issues getting Quattlebaum and Howard in place, so the process dragged through the weekend, when the fictional hitting guru Donnie Stevenson was lauded by Alonso, Michael Conforto and Brandon Nimmo.

One person familiar with the situation viewed the creation of the mythical Stevenson as "symptomatic" to what was ailing the team’s offensive mindset as a whole, so Davis’ firing only two days later was dragged into its wake. Alonso said he got emotional after hearing of Chili’s removal, so I asked him Tuesday if there was any regret over the Stevenson character -- a make-believe hitting coach -- colliding with the unfortunate demise of Davis, the real person in charge of those duties.

"I’m not going to talk about that," Alonso said.

Both Alonso and Lindor described the Mets as shaken up during Tuesday’s team meeting called by Scott, with the slumping $341-million shortstop saying that Davis’ firing "broke his heart." Lindor did express some personal responsibility that his terrible start may have contributed to the coaches being canned -- he was hitting .163 and in an 0-for-21 skid heading into Tuesday’s game. To those inside the organization, they couldn’t let Lindor continue to drown without at least taking these next steps. While the reasons for firing Davis were not "Lindor-centric" -- Scott said they needed a better support system for the players -- he was definitely a big factor in their thinking.

"I’m not performing to the best of my abilities," Lindor said. "But Chili can’t hit for me -- that’s all on me. If I would have been hitting, does he still have a job? I don’t know. I have nothing to do with this decision. But I do take a little bit of accountability."

Lindor, to put it bluntly, has been a mess at the plate, and even he finally admitted Tuesday that yes, he was in a legitimate slump now. But he’s not alone among the Mets. The team’s decision-makers also had growing concern about James McCann, the new $40-million catcher with a slash line of .215/.282/.262, and the apparent regression of Dominic Smith.

Is it realistic to believe that Quattlebaum and Howard can turn things around? The Mets were showing signs of doing that anyway under Davis, and given their talent, a revival is probably a safe bet. But as typically is the case with the Mets, when one crisis is cooled, a few more usually rise up in short order, and that happened again Tuesday with the deGrom scratch.

The Mets chose not to place deGrom on the IL when an MRI turned up inflammation in his right lat muscle. Will that make sense? Stay tuned.

By David Lennon

dave.lennon@newsday.comDPLennon

David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.