When your college football team wins by one point despite getting stoned on the one-yard line seven times in the fourth quarter because the other team misses an extra point and a field goal attempt in the final minutes – you know the sports gods will make you pay later. And that they did, as the Mets, despite facing a pitcher who’s been lousy the last three years, couldn’t get anything going offensively and ended up losing to the Nationals, 7-1, Saturday night at Citi Field.
Max Scherzer started for the Mets and gave up a homer to the second batter he faced. And if that wasn’t bad enough, he left after five innings due to fatigue in his left side which leaves his immediate future up in the air.
It was a 1-1 game at this point and the Mets survived the next two innings with Tommy Hunter and Joely Rodriguez pitching. Adam Ottavino pitched the eighth inning and allowed a go-ahead homer to make the game 2-1.
The Mets had a two-out rally in the bottom of the eighth inning, with Francisco Lindor coming to the plate with two on. He got ahead in the count, 2-0, and swung at the next pitch and popped up to end the inning.
As standard procedure, the Mets had two relievers up in this situation. If they scored, they were going to bring in Edwin Diaz. If they didn’t, they were going to bring in Adonis Medina, who got lit up by the Braves in his last outing in the majors.
In the sixth inning, it caught me off guard when they didn’t bring in Trevor Williams. That shock hit me again when they didn’t bring him in for the seventh. OK, Ottavino in a tie game in the eighth made sense. But Williams would have been a better option in the ninth, too. Does he have the Mongolian flu or something? He hasn’t pitched in forever despite his terrific pitching.
Anyway, Medina got lit up in the ninth inning and the game was put out of reach. The only decent thing in the frame is that we got to see the debut of Bryce Montes de Oca, whose fastball was just as good as advertised, hitting triple digits.
Eduardo Escobar provided the only run for the Mets with a leadoff homer in the bottom of the third inning.
Preface, two things: 1) I am a huge fan of Buck Showalter and give him a lot of credit for the way this team has gone about its business all season long; 2) I tend to *hate* the incessant, knee-jerk carping about every single bullpen move a manager makes.
That said, there’s some patterns that are baffling to me, beginning with the fact that Trevor Williams has not pitched since August 20th. This is the guy with a 20+ inning scoreless streak. I believe he has not given up a run since early July. Why can’t he get into a game?
In fact, I think he’s earned more high-leverage situations. Certainly more than a number of pitchers I could name.
And we burn Lugo in the 9th of a 7-3 game the night before?
Yet “trust” Hunter and Joely in a tie game?
Buck seems to have a core operating belief that you don’t use your best guys unless you have a lead (Williams is a separate concept, perhaps that he has to “save” him for an extreme long man situation? I’m grasping for straws here).
Yes, someone can reply, hey, if they don’t score, they can’t win. I get that. But right now I’m just talking about the mothballing of Williams. What a wasted resource. Is something going on that I missed?
By my recollection, in the past two weeks there have been three games where late and tied Buck has gone with the “B” group w/ predictable results. That said, the blame isn’t entirely on the “B” squad; in two cases, they actually performed pretty well. So it’s more about process for me, and why Williams just can’t get in a game.
Could be that Buck is worried about Carrasco today, wants Williams available. But that goes against another core belief, that you only have today’s game. We knew it was tied score going into the 6th. The game was on the line. Who knows what tomorrow brings?
I’m not angry, I’m not going ballistic. Mostly, I’m confused. Buck is smart guy. This just doesn’t compute for me.
Any insights?
F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
When I complain about Buck Showalter making (in my mind) sub-optimal decisions – that doesn’t contradict my belief that he’s a terrific manager and has been overall a huge plus for the Mets.
Just like GMs need to have a Plan B – we as fans need to have the option of looking at things differently at different times. Showalter deserves a ton of praise for announcing McNeil as his starting 2B before Spring Training started, for leaving Nimmo in CF and moving Marte to a position he never played in the majors, for coming out of the dugout ready to fight when Lindor got hit in the head and a host of other things.
That doesn’t mean he’s perfect and is above criticism.
Just as important is the fact that not every criticism brought to the surface is announced by yelling at the top of your lungs or banging on the table. Sometimes it’s the equivalent of telling your kid that you can’t leave a bag of chips open or else they’ll go stale. That’s not overly angry or going ballistic – it’s just pointing out a better way of doing things.
Montes de Oca will be interesting. I am highly dubious of a reliever who can’t throw strikes. But obviously 100+ mph is nothing to sniff about.
I’m sure, like Gil Hodges, I would have been skeptical about Nolan Ryan, too.
I don’t like it when a pitcher doesn’t know where the ball is going.
Sidenote: Montes de Oca strikes me as exactly the kind of pitcher Buck has bemoaned all season long. The fireballer with no clue how to control the ball. Seems dangerous if you happen to be on the other side of the equation.
I’m watching with interest.
It’s like any given Sunday that anyone can win on any given day. This should not have been one of those days. We are playing as bad team as we can play and while I am hopeful that we will take another series win today, there’s absolutely no excuse at this time of the season for our bats to fall asleep. Kudos to Escobar Who has done his part to remind us why he should be playing third base. Of course the Braves continue to win because that’s what the Braves do. We now have five days to collectively hold our breath and pray that Max does not have a serious injury. Agree on all points about Trevor Willams and the rationalization that he may have to come in today if Cookie can’t go too far into the game is valid. Baseball fans always question a managers decisions when the results don’t turn out the way we want them to. Conversely, we rarely give a manager the credit for moving his pieces around in an effective way because then we give credit to the players for doing their part. They overplayed their infield hand having everyone play so close in so that McNeil couldn’t even run fast enough to get a ball dropped in on the dirt part of the infield. Again, if they get a ground ball right at an infielder and they turn a double play then the shifting of the infield looks like a brilliant move. Always a lot of moving parts in these games. Always hopeful for another win today. LGM
Awful outcome and once again the offense goes flat on Scherzer. A few bits of optimism…
– Is Escobar climbing out of his season-long slump?
– Kenley Jansen blew another save last night.
– Goldschmidt has cooled off a little and McNeil is only about 5 hits away from leading the NL in BA.
– Givens is looking pretty good over his last 6-7 appearances.
– Joely did not self-combust. (this is a stretch.)
– Scherzer says he should be ready for his next start.
– Cookie is back today.
– Is McCann battling to get to the Mendoza line? Sept OPS is .900. (another stretch.) But he’s at .690 for his last 7 days.
– Luis G, Megill, and perhaps Lucchesi
No doubt bad news about May, just when it seemed like he might be turning the corner and Alonso has gone to the dark side.
We are not privy to all the data that goes into managerial decisions. While Trevor Williams’s absence is odd, he could be nursing some injury that’s not quite IL-worthy or have some other issue, personal or otherwise. No one is perfect, Buck included, but he’s earned the benefit-of-doubt, IMHO.
Good grief. I would like to retract every optimistic syllable in my post. I won’t use the capitals that I want to use, but jfc.
Ha! And you were so admirably calm and rational there for a minute!