“It’s the same old song. But with a different meaning since you’ve been gone.” That Four Tops song used to play on the car radio with my parents singing along in the front seat of our brown Buick. My brother and I sat in the back, dejected, on our way back from another Mets loss at Shea Stadium circa 1980. The song was as apropos then as it is now. Once again, the Mets got great starting pitching but couldn’t score a lick and the leaky bullpen let the game get out of reach in case there was any hope of a comeback.

In this edition, Steven Matz, who now owns a pretty impressive 3.31 ERA, allowed just one run over 6.1 innings pitched, but the Mets were stymied by Cy Young candidate Blake Snell and the Rays bullpen. Matz exited with the Mets down 1-0 but Robert Gsellman and Anthony Swarzak each allowed a run in relief to bring the score to 3-0 Tampa Bay. The only bright spot besides Matz was Wilmer Flores, who delivered three hits, perhaps in an opportunity to boost his trade value.

It’s a sad state of affairs in Queens and expect another loss tomorrow as the Mets are trotting out Chris Flexen to pitch batting practice for the Sunday game.

11 comments on “Gut reaction: Rays 3, Mets 0 – 7/7/18

  • Mike Walczak

    The Mets have to play almost .500 baseball for the rest of the year, to lose 90 games for the season.

    Matz and Wheeler have both pitched pretty well.

    So what do the Mets do? It appears that deGrom and Syndergaard aren’t going anywhere. Will they trade Matz or Wheeler? As always, the potential question is, for what?

    My guess as I have said before, is that they end up trading the expiring contracts.

    Maybe Flexen will surprise us tomorrow with a good outing.

  • Pal88

    Why do teams wait until the last few days of the trade deadline to make trades? .you would think the teams that are buyers would want to make these trades the earlier the better….

    I’m tired of the same boring loss day after day..and having the youngsters up would at least make watching a game more interesting…7/31 is still 3+ weeks away.

  • Chris F

    3-4 but sadly not in the clutch with a runner on and a double would have mattered.

  • David Klein

    They say the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different result. And expecting a different result yet Mickey continues to use Swarzak and Gsellman in close games over and over again, and they keep allowing insurance runs while Smith and Bashlor collect dust. I guess they are bench pieces like Dominic Smith?

    I figured Rosario would struggle offensively this year and he has struggled mightily, but I figured his defense would but solid but it hasn’t been close to solid. I don’t think his defense has been as horrid as defensivive runs saved says he’s been but he’s been bad and that’s disappointing. I think he’ll figure out things offensively but it might take him years like it took Didi but the defense def hasn’t been as advertised.

    Matz pitched his usual game where he stranded a bunch of runners and you hope regression won’t bite him too hard when his strand rate regresses to the mean.

  • Name

    For the past 2 years, the Mets have tried paying big bucks for bullpen help (Swarzak, Ramos, Blevins) as well as developing from within (Gsellman, Sewald, Robles) to little success.

    Is the front office just really bad at evaluating talent in this area, or is it time to start pointing fingers at the guys in the dugout who crash and burn every guy out there.

    • Chris F

      Name, talent evaluation is a major concern for this team, period.

    • TexasGusCC

      Good point Name. I’m just surprised at the way Callaway, a pitching guy, uses the relievers. I know others do too, but, I expected a breath of fresh air. Instead, I got the same old dust.

      • Name

        Gsellman had a 2.87 ERA in his first 22 games this year. But over the last 18 it’s been 7.23
        Sewald held a 3.86 ERA in his first 16 games. The last 10 it was 7.71
        Ramos also had a cool 3.00 in his first 18 appearances but had a dreadful 11.74 ERA before succumbing to injury.

        Last year Robles started out strong with a 1.42 ERA over 18 games, but then fell apart to the tune of 6.69 ERA for 28 games. We know the Salas story – strong April and then had nothing by the time May came because of heavy usage.

        It’s a consistent pattern – relievers start out strong, but SPs are babied (or ineffective in the case of last year), which results in RP overusage and then the workload catches up to them and the end result is what we have now. But the fingers are never pointed at the guys in the dugout.

  • Eraff

    Now beyond hope, the Mets are Maximizing Trade Value for Bautista while sitting Dom Smith. This is exactly the time that you “give” ab’s to young players.

    PS… McNeil belongs here and Reyes belongs “not-here”

    There’s a way to lose and make it useful…this is useless

  • Pete in Iowa

    Rosario is just plain horrible.
    First, he botches an easy grounder for a run. Then he inexplicably throws to third and allows a runner to go to second uncontested. Finally, his lack of range was on full display on Ramos’ RBI single past him.
    We can talk all we want about why certain suspects are on the ML roster: Reyes, Bautista, etc, etc. In my view, Rosario, with his below average fielding and even worse bat, should be in Vegas. He needs to get his act together and, most of all IMHO, get away from Reyes!!
    Maybe that sort of boot in the backside would wake him up. At this point, what would it hurt??
    “Top prospect??” He just plain sucks.

  • Eraff

    Pete— you can’t have young players and nice things with that attitude. He is surviving here…he is not hiding, he is playing through all the things that very young players suffer.

    “Boots” and Boos are for guys who lack effort, or who do something that is just crappy—so, Pete…..

    Booooooooooo!!!!!!!! to your comments…you’re not a Top Fan. You belong at Kingsport!

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