In games the Mets have won so far in 2015, they have walked 60 times and struck out an even 100. In those games the team line has been .260/.340/.395 with 13 home runs. In games lost by the Mets, the team has walked just 18 times, and struck out 80. That team batting line is .198/.248/.281 with just four home runs. As the Mets have been doing more losing than winning over the last 10 games, those uglier numbers are concerning.
This offensive nosedive has had help from a plethora of sources. Wilmer Flores has seemingly carried his fielding woes with him to the plate, or vice versa. Then he was inexplicably benched for the entire weekend so that Ruben Tejada‘s potent bat could help spark the offense. Try not to laugh. Meanwhile Michael Cuddyer and Lucas Duda, who represent the heart of the Mets order, are hitting .167 and .229 respectively over the last ten games. Juan Lagares is certainly hot, hitting .410 over his last 10. But much like a sad Bahamas cruise, it’s been singles-only for the past five games, and much of the season. The team is not hitting for average, not hitting for power, and striking out more than they did earlier in the season. And they are wasting fantastic starts by their starters in the process.
It’s all a very painful reminder of what has plagued the Mets over the past several seasons. New hitting coach Kevin Long has certainly had some positive impact, but he hasn’t changed the system. The Mets as a team are still failing to recognize patterns that pitchers are offering them. For the season, the team is swinging at pitches outside of the strike zone 28.4% of the time, which is eighth-best in the baseball. Great, they aren’t flailing at balls in the dirt as much! But they are also swinging inside the zone just 65% of the time, ranked 19th, and are tied with the Royals for 14th with a 60.8 first pitch strike rate. Neither of those last two numbers are glaringly awful, but when you consider that the Mets are seeing the sixth-most pitches in the strike zone of any team, they numbers seem a bit less easier to ignore.
Teams often enter slumps, especially month-to-month. The Mets are playing without two vital position players in David Wright and Travis d’Arnaud, and the Mets bench players haven’t been producing anything of value to bolster a regular lineup that’s flat-lining at the moment. Wright’s hopeful return by this coming weekend should solidify the heart of the order, and if Flores can indeed shake off his atrocious fielding of late, he may rebound with the bat as well. Let’s not forget he does lead the team with three home runs, as lame as that is.
It’s just so unfortunate that the entire lineup is stuck in the mire all at the same moment, especially when the pitching is holding up its end of the bargain. The collective team arms are ranked in the top-10 in ERA, WHIP and home runs allowed. Meaning they’ve been doing their job to keep runners off the bases, and runs off the board. The relievers were so-so in Miami, but against the Nationals they threw 11.2 innings, giving up just three earned runs, all attributed to Buddy Carlyle during Thursday’s game. And the starters, including ulcer-inducers Jon Niese and Dillon Gee, have pitched beautiful of late. If this team is going to accomplish anything close to playoff baseball, let alone playing .500, they have to maintain some offense to back these guys.
The recent rash of strikeouts indicates that the hitters are going up to the plate hacking, maybe hoping to spark a rally. But with no one on base ahead of them, rallies tend to die quickly. The Mets got to where they were in April because they drew walks (ninth-best) and kept strikeouts to a minimum (tied for seventh-best). So far in May they are tied for fifth-highest in strikeouts, and tied for sixth-fewest in walks. This isn’t just a three-game small sample, it’s been going on for the past week and a half. It’s a complete role reversal from the winning baseball the team was playing, and it’s not even hard to see! If Kevin Long is going to earn his paycheck, he needs to calm the fire before it engulfs the team. Strikeouts are to be expected, as they are a sign of aggressiveness. But if that aggressiveness is causing pitchers to adjust to your team strategy, and you don’t adjust back, you’re dead.
It’s a lull, if an extremely ugly one, and lulls happen. Nobody wants to lose back-to-back 1-0 games to the same team, and nobody wants to tie a 44-year old record of futility while you’re at it. But that’s what the Mets have done. They must acknowledge it for the scarlet letter it is, and it’s important that the coaches don’t whitewash it as just something that happens. If this team is going to win anything, it can’t happen. Not for big stretches, and not for little ones either.
This coming week, and the rest of May will certainly show fans what this team is made of. If they learn and grow from it, then there is enough pitching and depth that the team can recover. If these numbers at the plate continue though, don’t count on the pitching being anything more than frustrated.
Great post, Patrick. Love the Bahamas cruise metaphor. Who has more homers right now, Nelson Cruz or the Mets?
First, Collins said that Flores’ day off was only because it was scheduled. Then when he wasn’t in the line up the following day…
I think like many, it is impossible to be young, commit the errors, hear the boo’s, and not take it to the offense. It’s sad.
I do not want to see us package either Matz nor Syndergaard for a 30 year old injury prone SS. Let’s give Matt Reynolds a try first.
Cuddyer was quite sober-minded about his slump, as vets often are. He will come around. Lucas may be returning to a more normal pattern.
Grandy was really hot and brought his average up to…his expected norm.
We’re not an offensive powerhouse.
When the defense up the middle cost us some games, it highlighted the deficiencies we carry.
Well summed up.
Not being an offensive powerhouse yields an interesting conundrum Peter. Number one, it means that defense needs to be job #1 to back up all the terrific pitching weve gotten. Yet Alderson clearly does not value defense in any manifest way. On top of this, he genuinely covets what the Yankees and Astros have, run scoring via the long ball. He’s built a team that, as you rightly note, is not an offensive powerhouse…and at the same time build a team deficient on defense. How that gets the job done for 162 or October is a mystery to me. In October you got to be able to pick up the ball and not give extra outs.
Another article praising walks, when seeking walks contributes to the Mets offensive woes. For instance, Granderson leads the team in walks and was leading the NL for a while. However, he has 1 HR and 6 RBI and is on pace for 6 HRs and 36 RBI for the season. Why? Because he has been instructed, or believes, that he should walk as much as possible. Oh yes, he is on pace to score 90 runs from all those walks, as long as another batter drives him in. Or three other batters —– if they are all seeking a walk instead of a hit like Granderson.
A walk is the minimum positive result in an AB, without making an out. And there are outs (sac fly) that are more productive than a walk. So to approach an AB with a walk as even a partial goal is to seek and accept the minimum positive result. The reason that Murphy, Cuddyer and even young Lagares are successful hitters is because their goal in an AB is a hit, not a walk.