The wheels are coming off this season. The Mets blew yet another game in ugly fashion as the Braves walked off with a game winning home run in the bottom of the ninth. You can’t blame the feeble offense for this one as they gave the Mets leads of 4-0 and 6-2 that the bullpen couldn’t hold.
Steven Matz made the start and looked good for three innings before exiting with a finger injury. In case you blinked, the Mets had just gotten the news earlier in the day that Noah Syndergaard was going on the 10-day disabled list with his own finger injury. Perhaps they injured them pointing at the myriad reasons why this team keeps losing.
The fruitless early lead came courtesy of two home runs from Asdrubal Cabrera, a home run by Adrian Gonzalez and timely doubles by Jose Bautista and Brandon Nimmo. Every reliever who came out from the Mets bullpen ran into trouble, starting with Paul Sewald, who needed nearly 40 pitches to get through the first of his two innings. Jerry Blevins allowed another run in an uncharacteristic 1.2 inning outing to lower his ERA to 5.56. Jacob Rhame, who does not look like he belongs in the Majors, gave up three earned runs on four hits in 1.1 innings. Gerson Bautista, who throws hard, but hasn’t figured out how to pitch yet, gave up the big bomb in the ninth.
Injuries, slumps, underperformance and an overworked bullpen now have this team sitting at .500. The season is far from over but it’s also far, far away from that red hot start we got off to back in April. Things don’t look brighter for tomorrow with the struggling Jason Vargas opposing perennial Mets killer Julio Teheran. Then we head to Chicago to face a surging Cubs team. With seemingly half our team on the disabled list, this season could easily spiral down the drain over the next few weeks. We need some Mets magic.
Don’t be so quick assigning us a loss tomorrow with Vargas going against Teheran. Latest forecast has an 80% chance of rain in Atlanta.
LOL, good point Michael. Although, I’m not over the shenanigans pulled by the grounds crew on Monday to cover the field when there was barely a sprinkle and JDG was rolling. I don’t trust the Braves, ever!
Keith Hernandez made a very good point after the game. He said that everything Callaway is trying doesn’t work. We could debate if Familia was available or whatever, but if these guys are in the majors then they are MLB pitchers. They need to do their job. Rhame unveiled his off-speed pitch only after giving up the lead. ‘What the heck are you waiting for dude? If you don’t trust your pitches and think your straight 97mph fastball will bail you out because it’s 97, well, guess what?’
Two thoughts:
– I’m glad to not hear Callaway even mention an injury as reason for the loses. Everyone knows some big players are out and it would be easy to say snakebit and cry about all the injuries, but that gives the team an excuse and I don’t want that. Kudos to Callaway.
– In his ninth inning atbat, it seemed that Conforto wasn’t there – meaning he had something on his mind. He got beat on a fastball down the pipe to strike out and missed another one earlier. After two bad breaks in the outfield the previous half inning, playing deep on a bloop and then having the ball skip passed him for a triple, I wonder if he didn’t have that on his mind and wasn’t over those yet?
If this period of continuing to fight without excuses and keep giving yourself a chance to win every night without looking at who is out can continue, then this will be a very mentally tough team in the second half of the season. However, winning some now is kind of important, also.
Gus… Umpires make the decisions on whether to bring out the grounds crews
Eraff, grounds crews give weather reports. The radio booth’s weather report was saying there weren’t any bands of moisture coming through, which was accurate. What did the ground crew see that necessitated a 45 minute delay in non-rain weather?
If the season plays out like it is currently going, it will be interesting to see what Alderson will do about it. My guess, not much. Continued garage sale shopping.
I don’t think he’ll have the chance to do much—-forced retirement.
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.
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