The Reds used four two-out hits in the bottom of the first inning to jump Kodai Senga with a four spot and they cruised from there to a 5-0 win Thursday afternoon in Cincinnati. By losing the rubber game here, the Mets dropped their fifth straight series since splitting a four-game set with the Giants on April 20-23.
There were as many bloops and bleeders versus Senga as there were hard-hit balls. Either way, he was unable to put batters away in the first inning. After that, he settled in and found his groove, striking out five straight batters at one point. With two outs in the fifth inning, it looked like Buck Showalter was going to have a similar decision today as he had last night with Justin Verlander, whether to keep a SP in with a pitch count over 90.
But Senga gave up a solo homer to make it 5-0 and that thought went out the window.
Meanwhile, the Reds went with a bullpen day and the Mets’ bats couldn’t take advantage of that. Everyone in the order batted four times and in those 36 trips to the plate against middle relievers, they fanned nine times. Their best chance to score ended with a runner being thrown out at the plate.
The Mets have scored 18 runs in their past eight games, with 12 of those coming in two contests. They were shut out for the seventh time this season and the fourth time in their last 15 games. They are now 4-13 in their last 17 games, with their last two wins being 2-1 and 1-0.
There are no easy answers when the starters are lousy and the bats mostly silent. Maybe it’s time for the “Bull Durham” shower scene.
Right now, the Mets are playing like a last place team. Losing series after series to bad teams. Hope it changes, but we could end up being sellers.
This is a better clip for motivation. From Major League!
Watching the final two Mets ST games in Florida (ties), the only player that impressed me was Lindor’ fielding and hitting. It also worried me that all the pundits and writers had this team as World Series bound or at worse, going deep in the playoffs. I didn’t see it. Fact was, I didn’t think this team would win 90 games, and might miss the playoffs altogether. Looks like I was right.
So now what? Mike W is right when we could end up being sellers, but management won’t ever do that, and a hot streak would get us back on the fringes of playoff potential. I can only hope that Mauricio and Vientos get called up, that Alvarez will be catching 90% of the time from here on out, and that Baty is allowed to go through his growing pains and stay manning 3B.
Will any of this get us to the playoffs? Probably not. Even if Alonso, Lindor, McNeil start hitting again, without pitching; it won’t matter. So again, time to sell off and/or discard veterans and stock up on other team’s minor league hopefuls. And yes, I would entertain offers for Alonso and let Vientos man 1B afterwards.
Alonso is probably our most valuable trade chip so you certainly have to entertain the idea if you can get back some stud pitching in return. It does help that Vientos is showing off his offensive potential and could likely offer similar defense to Alonso.
Gut Reaction: Senga’s pitching in the first inning set the tone of the day. The hitting was non-existent. Alvarez has cemented his starting position at catcher. He’s more than adequate defensively and he is improving everyday on offense. For the last 15 games he has a OPS of 1.045 OPS. Anything above .600 OPS is an improvement from last year catching unit. Only one game out of a playoff spot.
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What a bunch of lollygaggers