The first five months of 2016 the Mets couldn’t hit with RISP and it was painful. In 2013, Terry Collins wrote the names John Buck, Ike Davis and Ruben Tejada into the lineup day after day after day when all three were hitting worse than pitchers. It was so bad – they were dubbed here as, “The Terrible Trio.” That wasn’t fun, either. This year has been a combination of what was awful about both 2013 and 2016. In Friday’s 2-1 loss to the Phillies, the Mets went 1-14 with RISP and the hitters who’ve been struggling, well, they struggled.
Conforto, Lindor, McCann, McNeil and Smith combined to go 1-17.
But what’s been special about 2021 is that the Mets have decided to add a degree of difficulty to all of their losses. This time it was that the Phillies were playing without four of their five-best hitters. Those that suited up combined for just three singles, two of which didn’t even leave the infield. Yet, somehow, they won. How on earth did that happen? Why, with the pitcher at bat with the bases loaded, of course. The pitcher struck out, which should have ended the inning, but the ball got away from James McCann and two runs scored. Yes, not one run – two. It was ruled a passed ball, so the runs go down as unearned.
Marcus Stroman was the hard-luck loser. And to add another layer of disgusting, Stroman had to leave the game early with what was later revealed to be a tight hamstring.
There was some bad blood in the game. Jose Alvarado, who earlier this year hit Michael Conforto in the head, hit Jeff McNeil. The Mets had a chance against Alvarado but he struck out Dominic Smith to end the threat. Alvarado especially enjoyed punching out Smith, who jawed with Alvarado after Conforto got hit. He celebrated the strikeout and then threw down his hat and glove and invited Smith to come after him. Smith appeared somewhat willing to do just that but was restrained by teammates.
The next inning, Rhys Hoskins had two pitches thrown sort of inside and drew a walk. He started jawing with Miguel Castro, who seemed quite willing to engage before being restrained by teammates. In both cases it seemed the Phillies were the instigators.
As with most baseball beefs, not much happened. Usually, that’s a good thing. But maybe this is the one time out of a 1,000 that something needed to happen. Maybe the way for the Mets to bust out of their doldrums is to get in a fight and throw some punches.
Of course, if they tried that now, they’d probably swing and miss.
How were the Phillies instigating when both those inside pitches to Hoskins were in his shirt and I can’t believe he got out of the way of the second one?
The Mets need to pick a lineup out of a hat or something.
What did the announcers say about the passed ball? It seemed like McCann never got close to it and the commentators of the FS1 baseball recap – Dontrelle Willis and Frank Thomas – both agreed that McCann got crossed up. Furthermore, they said the Mets are snake bit.
No Realmuto or Harper in the lineup for the Phils, a back of the rotation starter against the Mets second base starter, yet the Phils prevail. I watched it on MLB network and the announcers there (Phillie broadcasters) thought the key play of the game when the strikeout pitch got past the catcher should have been a wild pitch due to the catcher being crossed up.
Just before the pitch, Stroman put up four fingers, asking McCann, who wound up missing the pitch by six inches… not even close. Hard to call a wild pitch on a called strike, cross-up or not.
Mets are the Loveable Losers again.
How could anyone want to fight with them… they are like puppies… romping and tumbling, chasing their own tails… so cute.
I never thought I would do this, but I’d like to thank Roger Goodell for completely distracting me from last night’s Met game. By reading the review, this seems to be as brutal a regular season loss as can be possible, and the $363 million dollar man is about as lost as a big leaguer can be. Oh my.
Gut Reaction: 1-14 RISP + 2 unearned runs = 1 lose . They need to change the equation. Maybe change the sum of the parts of the equation.