The Mets lost on a walk-off balk.
Let that roll around in your head for a minute. Is there a more soul-crushing way to lose a game? Which makes it the perfect way to end the day when they traded Justin Verlander.
The Mets had leads of 1-0, 4-3 and 6-4 but lost to the Royals, 7-6, in 10 innings when Josh Walker came into the game and before throwing a pitch, committed the balk.
Yeah, Josh Walker – who had him on their bingo card coming into a tie game in extra innings before the season started. Of course, having already used their top four relievers, Buck Showalter went for the platoon advantage. It’s hard to be upset, especially when the other choices were John Curtiss, Reed Garrett and Vinny Nittoli. That doesn’t even sound like a good bowling team, much less MLB relievers. But they probably have options, which is all that matters.
If we can’t be upset about managing for the platoon advantage, we can certainly be upset over Brett Baty’s throwing error, which extended the inning to allow the winning run to score. Baty also went 0-3 on the night, although at least he had two walks.
Pete Alonso homered to give the Mets a 1-0 lead. Francisco Alvarez led off the 10th inning with a two-run homer – still seems weird to type that line, despite the zombie runner rule being in existence for years now – to pace the Mets’ offense.
Jose Quintana started and pitched into the seventh inning. It was a solid, if unspectacular, performance. It should have been enough against a Royals team that entered the night 43 games below .500 for the year.
Maybe they were just too relentless.
Yuck, but in many ways poetic justice. Welcome to 1981 and back to the future Met style.
Gut Reaction: Oh , Balk it !!!
to quote Name from chatter:
“Oh Baty”
Unless Baty can find a way to slow the game down, he will be a major liability. He is struggling mightily at the plate (really, he looks lost, often well behind fastballs), and is struggling just as hard in the field, whether it be with the glove or throw. Last night runs scored on both aspects of defense. He missed a totally fieldable ball int he bottom of the 7th, just having to lean to the left to get it, when the ball clanked off his mitt to LF. Run scores. Then the bad throw in extras. All these miscues happen beciase hes rushed and panicked and unable to perform at MLB level.
This off season he needs to take 5000 or more grounders with throws to increase his defensive skills. As for the plate? Who knows, but he cant catch up to fastballs and has “trouble with the curve”. 2024 may be a bit of an experiment, but I’d have no trouble getting a short timer FA to platoon wioth him.