Full disclosure: I missed most of this game. I was at a pre-Father’s Day dinner at my brother-in-law’s house. I tuned in in time to see yet another fielding gaffe account for the Braves’ sixth run. I notice that Noah Syndergaard got knocked around a bit, Curtis Granderson hit the ball hard three out of four times at bat, including a home run and that Travis d’Arnaud hyperextended his elbow on a play at the plate and is the dreaded “day-to-day” — which, in Mets parlance means we won’t see him again until September.
Can I get a little help with the rest?
Charlie, I will try to help out and supplement this sprinkling in my gut reactions.
The Mets were put under pressure to stay in First Place when the Nats Max Scherzer threw a near perfect game no hitter against the Pirates before the Mets even took the field.
The first inning started nicely with bak to back singles and hit batsman to load the bases with one out and no injuries. TdA delivered with a two run single but there it stopped with Lagares and Hererra striking out. Our two fastest players could not make contact. Too many strikeouts to generate an offense.
Syndergaard was doing a Wheeler impression and racking up the pitch count. These are two very talented pitchers who should have sucessful careers but it is agonizing to watch the lack of command. After 4 innings, 88 pitches,a Lagares error, nobody covering second base on a steal the Braves took a 4-2 lead.
A bright spot was the 5th inning when Leathersich struck out the side and even got to face a righty batter thanks to JdG flying tackle on TC holding him back and screaming “you can’t keep taking out sucessful pitchers”.
Grandy homered 4-3. He leads off because according to TC they have nobody else. Please disregard Tejada and his 348 OBP.
TdA homered 4-4, and why he isn’t he batting 2nd if the best hitter Wright was supposed to. TC , the new sabermetric genius.
Things went south in the 6th with Atlanta scoring 2 runs. The new fielding epidemic of not throwing the ball to get an out struck Eric Campbell failed to throw home on a force play giving the Braves their sixth run. I was watching on the Braves feed and their announcers looked at the replay and said “thanks for the run.” Next inning, TC took care of the problem by double switching Flores into game. Tejada went to third and almost got his ankle broken covering a steal of third. If a team uses defensive charts and defensive shifts then why can’t they do the most obvious and put their players at their best defensive position when they are in a game Who has the better arm for right field?
Well the Mets went silently in the remaining three at bats.
Thud ….that was the sound of the bottom falling out. No first place, not even a playoff spot.
Great recap! Mets “fielding” a terrible team, with only d’Arnaud the only dependable fielder right now (Lagares can’t throw, so I’m leaving him out).
Charlie,
If you love dumb, sloppy baseball you missed a good game.
Yikes- truer words were never spoken. Watching the Mets is like banging your head against the wall- it feels so good when you stop.
Yeah, I feel like I’m on the Titanic (with Captain Collins), with an iceberg about to be hit at any moment.
I honestly can’t recall for the life of me how this team won 11 in a row.
James, have you heard the one about blind squirrels and acorns?
It’s a brilliant move by the Nats to do so miserably as to fool Metsland into believing the Mets are a playoff type team. By purposely tanking their season until July 31st, the Nats will keep the Mets at or around first place and Sandy will not see a need to make a move – be it personnel or management. Then, August 1st they step on the gas, go 40-20 (while the Mets continue their pace of 27-33) and win the division by double figures.
But, we were in first place for so much…
Given: a failing offense and a leadoff man who no longer walks, fails to get on base.
Fact: Curtis Granderson has hit 6 solo HRs. He has 9 HR and 21 RBI.
Would it be so crazy to try something different? To me, he looks like a #7 hitter. But maybe any kind of change might help cause some kind of breakthrough.