A familiar sight - no offense for the Mets!
Clay Holmes was the only bright spot in this especially lackluster loss in Arizona on Saturday
What’s Up with the Mets? ⚾️
The Mets lost another low-scoring affair, falling to the Diamondbacks 2-1 (box)
RHP Clay Holmes was solid again, allowing two runs on five hits in 5.2 innings, with six strikeouts against two walks
Holmes has allowed two or fewer runs in all eight of his starts this year, the longest such streak to start a season in Mets history (MLB.com)
It was a brutal day for the Mets at the plate, as they mustered just three hits on the evening, striking out eight times while walking three
3B Brett Baty drove in 2B Marcus Semien on an RBI double in the second inning, and that was just about all the offense New York had to offer
RHPs Austin Warren and Craig Kimbrel were both scoreless in relief of Holmes, but the Mets’ offense failed to generate any firepower in the later innings
Roster Moves 📰
Signed RHP Xzavion Curry to a minor league deal
Signed RHP Brady Miller to a minor league contract
The Just Mets Podcast 🎙️
ICYMI: Rich flew solo in the latest midweek episode to cover the semi-bittersweet series in Colorado.
SUBSCRIBE: YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify
Play of the Game 👎
Despite securing the first two outs of the inning, Holmes got into trouble in the bottom of the third.
First, Corbin Carroll singled; then, Geraldo Perdomo singled. After walking Adrian Del Castillo to load the bases, Holmes threw Ildemaro Vargas a 2-1 slider way out of the zone. Vargas poked his bat out and slapped the ball just past SS Bo Bichette’s glove and into left field, driving in Arizona’s only two runs of the game.
Those two runs proved to be all they’d need.
Down on the Farm 🌾
RHP Zach Thornton (No. 14 prospect, Triple-A): 6.0 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 2 BB, 4 K, 1 HR
RF John Bay (High-A): 3-for-5, 2 R, 2 RBI, 1 HR
C Vincent Perozo (High-A): 3-for-4, 1 R, 3 RBI, 1 HR, 1 K
SS Elian Peña (No. 8 prospect, Single-A): 1-for-3, 2 BB
RF JT Benson (Single-A): 2-for-4, 1 3B, 1 K, 1 SB, 1 CS
BOX SCORES
Single-A SLU | High-A BRK (Gm 1 / Gm 2) | Double-A BNG (PPD) | Triple-A SYR
Today’s Game 🗓
Match-up: Mets (15-24) at Diamondbacks (18-20)
Where: Chase Field - Phoenix, AZ
Starters: RHP Huascar Brazobán (2-0, 1.53 ERA) vs. LHP Eduardo Rodríguez (3-0, 2.50 ERA)
When: 4:10 PM EDT
Where to Watch: SNY
We’ve seen this movie (way too many times) before ✍️
The Mets have scored two or fewer runs in 44% of their games played this season. That’s bad. They have also scored the second-fewest runs in all of baseball. That’s really bad!
Nearly half the time the Mets have played in these first eight weeks, we’ve had the same story to tell at game’s end: the once-presumed potent offense failed to muster sufficient energy to win.
Entering last night’s game, Arizona starter Merrill Kelly sported a 0-3 record with a near-10.00 ERA; naturally, this was his rebound game. Sure, the Mets made some decent contact against him metrically — 14 total hard-hit balls sounds pretty good. But when you see the vast majority of those hard-hit balls still weren’t hit hard enough or at the right angle to do anything of substance, they sound far less substantive.
It’s been made clear that Carlos Mendoza’s job is safe (for now)… but at what point might a change occur within the coaching staff, specifically in the hitting department? Obviously, in-season staff shake-ups are uncommon, but Saturday’s contest was yet another display of the Mets’ dismal efforts at the dish this season, particularly against fastballs. Facing an average velo of 92.6 mph last night, Mets hitters went 3-for-26 (.115) against four-seamers, sinkers, and cutters, with more whiffs (8) and strikeouts (4) than hits. That just can’t continue; it’s completely non-competitive.
Between uncharacteristic struggles with velocity and career-high chase rates from multiple vets in the lineup, this can’t just be as simple as a whole team battling a communal case of the yips. It’s hard to imagine the hitting program is so bad that it’s erased these players’ existing hitting ability, but unless they’re all ignoring their new coaches and walking into plate appearances without a plan, a hefty chunk of the blame has to fall on the team-wide approach being developed in the cage. The Mets are swinging at 48.7% of pitches they’re seeing, the seventh-highest rate in MLB; they sport a team-wide 34.1% chase rate (eighth-highest), and a 69.9% in-zone swing rate (fourth-highest). These trends have held all season; that’s a truly ridiculous amount of swinging considering the lack of production that’s resulted to date.
Mets hitters have posted a collective 0.9 fWAR; per FanGraphs’ Offense Runs Above Average (‘Off’), they’re MLB’s second-worst offensive unit, boasting a -29.2 value. Their 83 team wRC+ is also the league’s second-worst mark. They have baseball’s second-lowest on-base rate, fourth-lowest team walk rate, fifth-lowest isolated power output, and they are baseball’s worst slugging team. That last point is particularly frustrating, considering they’re posting the league’s tenth-highest hard-hit rate as a group.
The issue, of course, is that most of that hard contact is going into the ground. Mets hitters are producing the league’s fourth-lowest line drive rate, fourth-lowest homer to fly ball ratio (HR/FB), and its tenth-highest groundball rate (43.5%). That significant lack of quality contact has helped contribute to a .270 team BABIP, third-worst in MLB.
Simply put, this is one of the most unattractive offensive profiles you’ll ever see.
Between inconsistent performances and myriad injuries impacting this lineup out of the gate, plus the litany of offseason additions and subtractions, this team has had an incredibly difficult time establishing a stable foundation to build an offensive identity upon. Just when someone starts to turn it on, their spark burns right back out — Bo Bichette hit .300 for a week in April, now he’s hitting under .200 again this week; Mark Vientos’s stat line has been a rollercoaster his entire career. Even Juan Soto’s initially hot bat has cooled to a more pedestrian temperature lately, as he’s hitting just .222 in his last 54 at-bats.
From box score to heatmap performance charts, no piece of Mets hitting data looks all that good right now. Yes, a decent amount of their expected data suggests this team has experienced some collective bad batted-ball luck this season — Bichette’s had better defense played against him than anyone else in MLB this season, as illustrated by Ketel Marte snagging that line drive out of the air at the start of the game. But overall, the measurables are so discouraging that it’s become nearly impossible to celebrate the rare run-scoring outbursts this team actually does produce.
Until there’s a change, either in coaching or collective production, there’s really only so much that’s left to say about this offense.
They’ve told us who they are, over and over again: they’re going to keep chasing pitches out of the strike zone, they’re going to keep hitting balls into the ground, and they’re usually going to score two to four runs per game. Far more often than not this season, they’ve been reliably, predictably meek.
Getting Francisco Lindor back should hopefully help a bit, but that’s still weeks away. It’s doubtful any immediate calls to Syracuse will be made on the hitting front beyond those for specific needs-based replacements, but if Ryan Clifford and Nick Morabito continue hitting the way they have been in recent weeks, anything could be on the table, especially if the big league team’s record gets unsalvageably bad. (While we’re all eager for an A.J. Ewing debut, he’s hitting .207 to open the month of May…perhaps a little more time at Triple-A isn’t a bad idea.)
As the resident optimist, I wish I had a better prognosis than what I provided above; it’s genuinely painful to watch so much wasted potential on display every day. This team has absolutely demonstrated its ability to put a lot of runs on the board; they just did it the other day in Denver. But without any signs of sustained improvement to cling to, it’s gotten difficult to draw any reasonable conclusions beyond the overtly negative ones.
And yet, despite all the numbers above, the Mets have an opportunity today to win their third straight series. With the Tigers and Yankees due up in Queens, there are only so many opportunities for the Mets to right the ship before they head back out on the road to face a pair of division rivals — the more momentum this team has heading home, the better.
Whether they score two runs or 20 runs, the goal remains the same: just win.
(…But, so we’re clear, scoring more than two to four runs would definitely make winning easier.)
Around the League 🚩
The Guardians acquired C Patrick Bailey from the Giants in exchange for LHP pitching prospect Matt “Tugboat” Wilkinson and the No. 29 overall pick in the 2026 MLB Draft; in a corresponding move, Cleveland also optioned C Bo Naylor to Triple-A
Legendary Braves manager Bobby Cox passed away. He was 84 years old (MLB.com)
Atlanta starter Spencer Strider struck out eight Dodgers over six scoreless innings, allowing a single hit in the process
The Giants placed RHP Logan Webb on the 15-Day IL with right knee bursitis
Cam Schlittler delivered six scoreless innings with six strikeouts against just two hits, but it wasn’t enough, as the Brewers walked off the Yankees in extras