The pink uniforms and accessories were a nice touch for Mother’s Day weekend. Kevin Plawecki‘s parents surprised him by showing up at the field and he treated her to a rare offensive contribution with two hits. Neil Walker contributed two of his own and continued his resurgence with a home run as well. Oh, and Wilmer Flores actually made a nice play at third base. And that concludes the positive notes from this ball game.
Robert Gsellman started a little shaky, walking three batters and leaving a few pitches in the fat part of the plate, but still entered the 5th inning with a 4-2 lead. In the 5th he loaded the bases and Terry Collins had seen enough. He summoned his favorite pitcher, Hansel Robles, who brought his gas can with him to the mound. Robles let all three runners score before he recorded a single out and then allowed four more of his own runs to score for an ugly eight-run 5th inning. Paul Sewald and Rafael Montero did a commendable job holding the Brewers to a single run over the last three innings, but the damage was done.
Aside from the lousy pitching, errors (Asdrubal Cabrera), another base running blunder (Michael Conforto) and a lot of runners left stranded on the bases helped contribute to this forgettable loss. Even with all the injuries they have, the Mets still have a lot more talent than this rebuilding Brewers team. The Brewers have exactly one star player, Ryan Braun, and he’s injured. The rest of the team is made up of rookies and retreads and 2017 surprise Eric Thames. Yet, through the first two games of this series, the Mets are making them look like the Big Red Machine.
Jacob deGrom, our one reliable starting pitcher (though still not at his best) takes the hill on Mother’s Day and hopefully he can give the Met moms something to cheer about.
Too many holes to plug via trade…claw and wait and Hope…and maybe get a Manager fired.
But Matt, there’s many injuries. We have to wait for everyone to get healthy because then… um, what are we going to blame then?
This is what I’ve said for many years: Look at the other rosters, very few of them are perfect, very few teams don’t have big injuries, and very few are playing worse than the Mets. Rather than using their assets to their best ability, we cry about injuries, leak to the press that we might get Reyes into CF to play Cabrera at SS, Rivera at 3B, Duda at 1B, give Conforto some pine time because Reyes is a veteran, and we also continue to put unproductive players in the middle of the order. Kind of makes me long for the days that we would bench a productive Lagares to “get Ankiel going” because he “has power”.
You know, my friends here are encouraging me to start following the Astros… Ironically, every team gives their kids every chance to succeed, except one.
Gsellman has been a getting a pass in the blogosphere and the media, maybe that should and will change after this horrific start. In a perfect world, Gsellman was sent down at the end of April. Instead, he’s giving us Montero-quality outings and we have no choice but to continue rolling him out there because of our lazy always on vacation GM.
The truth is that they are injured beyond intervention and repair right now….and if you’re still bitching about Lagares not getting a shot…..????
No Eraff, I’m not bitching about Lagares not getting a shot. I’m comparing that time, when there was a young player playing well and instead they brought in a player released by the worst team in baseball and gave him a starting job, then stuck with him while he sucked!! Fast forward four years later, Conforto is a big reason for this team’s small success, so let’s make room for an unproductive Jose Reyes by taking time from Conforto,and to add the knee slapping punch line, Reyes has never played the outfield!
And your take is I’m bitching about Lagares???
Clearly, Reyes is not stealing time from Conforto.
Marc Carig of Newsday wrote that the Mets plan on getting Reyes more time in centerfield. First, why, aren’t there enough qualified outfielders? Second, who benefits from this? Cabrera mostly since they won’t be taking as much of his time, and Reyes because he must be in the lineup. And third, why did Reyes the. After Carig wrote this go into centerfield? Were they short outfielders? Come on Eraff. We’ve gotten to know the patterns of the clowns that run this circus pretty good by now.
The greater problem is that Terry over uses the pen, and we have been playing people out of position since opening day. And the medical staff should be put out to pasture! Tell me I’m wrong
You are right.This team won’t be right until Harvey, Wheeler and deGrom fully recover from surgery and regain their command and Matz and Lugo can pitch (if they can pitch at all) to fill out the rotation. It is the collapse of the starting pitching (and Familia’s season woes) that is stressing the bullpen.
This team had won four series in a row and unfortunately lost this one and are currently are in a three game losing streak. Matt is right that they have more talent then the Brewers and should have won this series. It looks as if the season is going to be a struggle until the starting pitching recovers.
Watching Gsellman pitch was like water torture. Maddening!
Gsellman needs to attack inside a bit more…. needs to locate/command above the hands inside….and his pitch selection itself is questionable.
He’s young with Live stuff— he’s getting his lumps now.
Eraff- I had the same observation about Gsellman. I believe a big part of his struggle is that he’s letting hitters get too comfortable at the plate. He’s not pitching inside at all.