Mets Swept Out Of Kansas City With 9-2 Defeat
The New York Mets (50-58) went into Kansas City (35-75) this week with a new-look roster after selling their two aces at the trade deadline. At the end of the series, the Mets were knocked on their backs and were swept by the team with the second-worst record in all of baseball, the Kansas City Royals. Carlos Carrasco (3-6, 6.60 ERA) did not record a single strikeout and the offense struggled for the bulk of the afternoon as the Mets took a 9-2 defeat.
Carlos Carrasco. Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports
Even though the Mets were able to avoid the shutout, it was the 40th time this year that the team has scored two runs or fewer, which puts them in not the greatest of company in baseball this year.
“Think we had six balls hit on the button, but they were mostly at infielders. When we do hit some balls hard, they seem to be making plays on them. They played well defensively in the infield too,” said manager Buck Showalter about the offense on Thursday.
Once again, it was Bobby Witt Jr. that was a thorn in the Mets’ side as he went 3-for-4 with two RBIs. In the bottom of the first, he singled to center and ended up stealing second. He would come around to score on an RBI double by Salvador Perez to put the Royals up 1-0.
Witt would do more damage in the third. After a sacrifice fly by Maikel Garcia, the shortstop crushed a solo home run to center that went 425 feet and put Kansas City ahead, 3-0. The 23-year-old shortstop had at least one hit in each of the first three games in the series.
There are four #MLB teams who have scored 2 or fewer runs in 40 or more games this season:
Oakland #A's: 50
K.C. #Royals: 42
Pittsburgh #Pirates: 41
N.Y. #Mets: 40.
The Mets opening-day payroll happened to be $140M more than the combined total of the A's, Royals and Pirates.— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) August 3, 2023
Meanwhile, the Mets’ offense could not do much against Brady Singer (7-8, 5.10). They had plenty of quick at-bats and two of the three hits they had against him came from his former college teammate at Florida, Pete Alonso (singles in the first and third inning).
Singer went eight innings and struck out four without surrendering a single walk on 100 pitches (65 strikes) in the win.
On the flip side, while Carrasco ended up pitching into the seventh inning, he ended up not recording a single strikeout. The final blow to Carrasco’s day came in that inning when Drew Waters hit a three-run home run to right (sixth of the year) to put KC up 6-0.
The right-hander allowed six runs on eight hits, walked a batter, and hit a batter on 74 pitches (52 strikes) in the loss. In his last four starts, Carrasco has allowed 21 earned runs over the course of 15 1/3 innings (four or more runs allowed in each start) and has pitched to a 12.33 ERA.
“You see a lot of 0-2 pitches that are getting hit hard. He usually doesn’t do that. He’s not getting the ball where he wants to get it in the sequence of pitches. You see hard-hit balls in 0-2, 1-2 counts. That’s why his pitch count was so low,” said Showalter on what he noticed about Carrasco’s struggles.
Things got even worse for the Mets in the eighth as they eventually had to finish the game with a position player pitching. Josh Walker allowed three straight singles, which ended up leading to a run scoring. Then, a fielder’s choice led to a pitching change as Danny Mendick had to come in to get the final two outs.
In just his second career appearance, Mendick ended up surrounding an unearned run on yet another RBI single by Witt Jr.
The embarrassment of back-to-back shutouts was erased in the ninth against Jonathan Heasley when Francisco Lindor hit a two-run shot to left for his 22nd home run of the year. However, it was too little, too late.
Stat Of The Game
As previously mentioned, Carrasco did not record a single strikeout in his start on Thursday. It is the first time that the 36-year-old right-hander did not record a strikeout in a start since August 10, 2021, against the Washington Nationals. Plus, in his 16 starts this year (according to our own Mathew Brownstein, he has the highest ERA in Mets history.
On Deck
The Mets will be back in action on Friday when they begin a three-game series at Oriole Park in Camden Yards against the Baltimore Orioles (66-42). LHP David Peterson (3-7, 5.92) will take the ball for the Mets against RHP Dean Kremer (10-4, 4.66) for the Orioles.
First pitch is at 7:05 p.m. The game will be televised on SNY and can be listened to on WCBS 880.
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