Mets Let Another One Get Away

Maybe, this is just who the Mets are.

Tuesday was another fresh reminder of what’s been a frustrating season thus far for a Mets ballclub that dropped to under .500 for the first time since May 16. The Mets lost a game they once led 4-1, as Carlos Carrasco was cruising through five innings; until he wasn’t.

Carrasco was tagged for three runs in the sixth inning, as he left a couple of offspeed pitches in the zone against Austin Riley and Sean Murphy. The Mets had their entire bullpen available after a day off but Buck Showalter tried to squeeze a quality start out of the 36-year-old right-hander. By the time Drew Smith was warm and ready, the Braves were already knocking at the door and had two runs across the plate.

It didn’t take long for Atlanta to sour Smith’s night either. Smith threw two straight sliders to Marcell Ozuna, who is an excellent fastball hitter. Unfortunately, it was poor execution on Smith’s part, as the red-hot Ozuna roped a double into the left field corner to tie the game at 4. A rather telling stat presented by the SNY broadcast is that the league is now hitting .462 against Smith’s sliders this season. His fastball? Opposing hitters are just hitting .111. That’s a stark contrast and the Braves were ready for those sliders, as Orlando Arcia would eventually single off that pitch to give Atlanta a 5-4 lead.

The Braves would go on to win 6-4, thanks to an insurance run that was added in the eighth after a Jeff McNeil defensive miscue in left field. It didn’t end up mattering however, as the Mets went down quietly in the top of the ninth inning.

The pitching staff shouldn’t be getting all the blame. The Mets had back-to-back great starts from Justin Verlander and Tylor Megill and nothing to show for over the weekend. And when the Mets’ pitching hasn’t been as sharp over the previous two games, including Tuesday, the offense again didn’t do enough.

“We’ve got some guys that are capable of better, we just haven’t been able to string a lot together,” Showalter said postgame. 

Yes, the Mets scored four runs on Tuesday, but they also had just four hits. Pete Alonso’s two-run homer in the third inning was the last hit the Mets recorded in Tuesday’s loss. They were afforded two more base runners, as Starling Marte reached on an error and Brandon Nimmo later walked, but New York’s bats fell largely silent for the remaining six innings of Tuesday’s game.

The Mets have now lost four straight games and have scored nine runs dating back to last Friday. Eight of those runs have come via the long ball. So, the Mets are hitting home runs, but not doing much else offensively. Power no longer seems to be an issue, it’s the consistency and situational hitting that looms large. 

The team just can’t seem to string together hits. And the two players who have been stringing together hits recently—Tommy Pham and Mark Canha—were out of the lineup on Tuesday. Showalter opted to have Daniel Vogelbach and Eduardo Escobar, who isn’t as adept with his bat from the left side, in the lineup instead.

Vogelbach went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts. Naturally, Showalter was asked how concerned he was about Vogelbach and his struggles at the plate. The Mets had Tuesday’s starter, Bryce Elder, on the ropes in the third inning, having scored four runs with two outs. After Francisco Lindor and Alonso each homered, it was Vogelbach who let Elder off the hook, striking out on four pitches.

“Anytime somebody’s not following their track record and you’re trying to get them back to it,” Showalter said. “He’s frustrated. He knows how much better he’s capable of and he really wants to help the team win.”

Vogelbach isn’t the only Mets player that’s struggled at the plate in 2023. Stringing hits together is something the Mets have just been unable to do this season, a far cry from how the team’s offense performed just a season ago. Lindor addressed those concerns by saying that the hits will come. Yes, it’s still relatively early, but the Mets have been saying that for quite some time now, and the evidence, at least as of late, has been few and far between.

“It’s another year. It’s part of the game,” Lindor said. “I’m sure at some point in the year, we’re going to start stringing hits together. We’re gonna start driving in runs in high-leverage situations. These situations are not really high-leverage and we’re gonna force them to use another bullpen arm. That’s gonna happen. It’s coming. That’s gonna happen at some point. I know we’re capable of doing that.”

Just how long the Mets can wait for that to happen will be tested over this next stretch of games.

The post Mets Let Another One Get Away first appeared on Metsmerized Online.