Matt Harvey didn’t have it today. He allowed seven runs, the most in any game of his career, and the Mets continue their slide due to up and down pitching, bad defense on the left side of the infield, and an offense that now ranks second only to the lowly Phillies for the lowest team OPS in baseball. The Mets have also grounded into the fourth-most double plays this year, partially because they have no speed on the base paths and partially because they are not driving the ball past the dirt. According to Fangraphs, the Mets are hitting the ball “Hard” 11th-best, “Medium” fourth-worst, and “Soft” third-worst. Two out of three usually ain’t bad, but here it’s awful.

Worse than this game comes news that David Wright is now sidelined with spinal stenois, and is going to be shut down for who knows how long. Getting anything out of the team captain before August now seems like false hope, and any talk of trading Daniel Murphy now seems like a fool’s errand as he’s needed at third base more than ever.

It’s doesn’t feel like the team is staying competitive, but rather receiving repeated beat downs, with moments of superb pitching by the blue and orange to break up the monotony. Today’s loss put the team run differential in the negatives for the month of May, and there are more questions than answers growing by the day. The team has no Triple-A hitter that can help this team in any significant way, the injuries are lasting longer than expected and it doesn’t appear as though a trade is going to be made. The Mets are still in second place, but I’m struggling to stay positive about how this team can get better.

5 comments on “Gut Reaction: Pirates 8, Mets 2 (5/23/15)

  • footballhead

    Today’s news about Wright is a reality check for all those who thought he could have been counted on to lead this team. What’s really depressing is that the front office has done nothing in the 6 weeks since he and Darnaud went down. If no trade was forthcoming, then at least maximize the personnel you have. Murphy should have been on 3B, Flores to 2B, and Tejada to short. Unlike most, I never saw SS as this teams major problem….just that putting Flores out there by this wishful thinking front office was.

    And once it became obvious that Cuddyer was not the clean-up hitter envisioned by Alderson, why is he still batting 4th?

    And why bring up hot hitting Vegas bats (Ceciliani), only to let them rot on the bench? I would have placed him at the leadoff spot, and gave him 6-10 games to sink or swim.

    So we have a surplus of pitching, no offense, no speed, no defense…..goodbye wildcard; goodbye +.500.

  • TexasGusCC

    Patrick, I think you summed up the situation perfectly.

  • Chris F

    Yeah, the only thing I would change is the picture on the home page…Chicken Little is paranoid…I’m afraid in the case of the Mets, the sky is actually falling!

  • Metsense

    In the last 30 days, only Duda, Granderson and Murphy have an OPS above 700.
    Tejada has a better OPS than Campbell. In fact Tejada has a better OPS than Flores! Maybe it is time to get Recker in there.Lagares is fourth best in OPS after Murphy so let him leadoff and start running, follow him with Granderson, Murphy, Duda and Flores leaving Cuddyer, Recker, Tejada.
    A trade is the only solution to improve the offense.

  • Pete

    I said it before. I’ll say it again. The Met’s will be in third place June 1. The only reason they will not be in fourth is because the Marlins are an embarrassment to MLB.

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