Mets lose again in humiliating, deflating fashion - drop 5-4 contest to the Giants

The Mets entered the eighth inning leading 4-2, but David Robertson's ineffectiveness and Pete Alonso's error helped collapse the Mets again

Jul 01, 2023

What’s Up with the Mets? ⚾️

The Mets took another bone crushing loss on Friday, this time to the Giants by a score of 5-4 at Citi Field (Box)
The Mets led 4-2 in the eighth inning, but a Pete Alonso error along with poor pitching from David Robertson netted the Giants three runs thanks to a three-run home run from Patrick Bailey
Carlos Carrasco allowed just two runs over five innings
Tommy Pham homered as part of a three-hit night - he now has an .863 OPS for the year
Jeff McNeil had two doubles as part of a promising night at the plate for the struggling utility player
The loss dropped the Mets June record to an abysmal 7-19, and suffered their 13th blown lead loss in June, the most in the majors during the month.
The Mets are now 12-16 in one-run games in 2023, and have a -31 run differential in the eighth inning this season

Looking ahead to the trade deadline 📈

Read Friday’s story about the Mets position at the trade deadline, what to do going forward with Ronny Mauricio, the possibility of moving both Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer, and more here.

Ice Cold ❄️

Pete Alonso is hitting .186/.279/.438 with 14 home runs and 32 RBI over his last 53 games
Jeff McNeil is hitting .234/.284/.277 with five doubles, a home run and 13 RBI with 27 strikeouts over his last 52 games
Starling Marte has seven extra-base hits and 16 RBI over his last 48 games

Injury Updates 🏥

LHP José Quintana (rib surgery) pitched for Triple-A Syracuse on Friday, but lasted only 2.2 IP while throwing 64 pitches. He could need another rehab start before returning

Today’s Game 🗓

Match-up: Mets (36-46) vs. Giants (46-36)

Where: Citi Field – Flushing, NY

Starters: RHP Justin Verlander (2-4, 4.11 ERA) vs RHP Anthony DeSclafani (4-7, 4.28 ERA)

When: 4:05 PM EDT

Where to Watch: SNY

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Did you expect anything else? ✍️

Last night, I was on a plane coming back to LaGuardia from West Palm Beach. Naturally, the flight was delayed, but it was actually for reasons at West Palm, not in New York.

Everything was going generally well for the Mets. They had gotten solid pitching from Carlos Carrasco, although this was once again another night where the starter failed to go six innings. He was none-the-less good, featuring an array of sliders and high fastballs throughout his five innings, seemingly showing effectiveness with pitches ending outside the strike zone.

Then both Jeff Brigham and Brooks Raley were fine out of the bullpen for six outs of their own, not allowing a base runner in the sixth or seventh inning.

In between that solidness on the mound, Jeff McNeil showed a lot of promise with his approach and result at the plate, Tommy Pham continued to show tremendous bat speed and hard hit rate with his three-hit performance, Pete Alonso hit a couple of balls hard but unfortunately didn’t have anything to show for it. All told, it was 4-2, and Buck Showalter decided to go with David Robertson for the eighth, a move I thought was proper (but always feel a little risky) considering the middle of the order was up for the Giants in the eighth.

But then the internet cut out on the plane.

Naturally, I turned to my wife and said, “I guarantee by the time the internet comes back on, the Mets will have lost in devastating fashion.”

Boy, I wish I hadn’t had been spot on in that forecast, a new favorite word of mine following that press conference from Billy Eppler on Tuesday.

To be fair, it was way worse than devastating. It was humiliating, it was bone crushing, it was so bad it was difficult to put the pieces together after watching that inning in what ended up being a 30 minute delay from my seat over Virginia, North Carolina, or somewhere unquestionably better than any seat at Citi Field at that particular moment.

Like, it was a classic bad Mets team loss.

It all started with a brutal error from Alonso with one out. Then a damn walk setup the whole disintegration of the night when Patrick Bailey unloaded a three-run homer to center on a hanging crap ball from Robertson, dead smack in the middle of the plate.

There are very few things that are worse for a team than losing games after leading a close one late. But the reason I turned to my wife and cynically predicted the Mets would lose wasn’t exactly blind cynicism. They entered the game with a -28 run differential in the eighth inning, which was simply outrageous to begin with but not exactly a number which led to any sort of surprise with last night’s outcome.

By the way, in case you needed a reminder, their run differential in the eighth inning is now -31.

Even though it was predictable and unsurprising, that doesn’t make it any less maddening. The Mets have turned into the butt of jokes in the league thanks to their unprecedented payroll and gross underperformance in all facets of the game.

That eighth inning last night spelled it out for them - their pitching has been atrocious, their bullpen is understaffed, a really, really really bad error truly setup the loss for them, there is too much weight on the shoulders of David Robertson, and it all might’ve looked a little different if they could just get some routine length from a starting pitcher.

Bad teams lose games like that. Bad teams make errors like that in the eighth inning. Bad teams lose games like that in the eighth inning. Bad teams have a 12-16 record in one run games. Bad teams have a -31 run differential in the eighth inning.

Bad teams leave even the die-hards, optimists and hopefuls like me predicting the Mets will lose a game with a two-run lead at home with six outs to go from 37,000 feet in the air and no video.

The sad truth is, I genuinely feel betting them to lose in that situation was safer than betting on them closing the deal. That’s what this season has come to - unfortunately, even I simply expect them to lose, and expect them to find ways to lose.

Part of me wishes they were just getting blown out every night, and they were truly uncompetitive from inning to inning. It would be a much easier pill to swallow than these gut wrenching, humiliating, embarrassing losses every night.

But they can’t even do that right, can they?

The stink of it is, that loss and the way they lost threw out a lot of the good in that game. Carrasco had a great night highlighted by his adjustments, McNeil had a very important night at the plate, they were able to successfully navigate the middle innings with their bullpen too.

But what is all of that worth? Maybe some trade value now but that’s about it.

On June 1, the Mets were 3.5 games out of first place. At the close of business on June 30, they were 18.5 games out of first place.

That is about as devastating a month the club has ever had. And, there are three months to go in the season, too.

Around the League 🚩

Shohei Ohtani hit a 493 foot home run to right field, his 30th of the season, but the Angels lost to the D-Backs 5-2
The Braves blew out the Marlins 16-4 on the strength of six more home runs, giving them an NL record 61 home runs for the month and their 54 wins are their most through 81 games since the National League went to a 162-game schedule in 1962
The Pirates walked off the Brewers 8-7 thanks in part to a game-winning, two-run home run from Carlos Santana
The Reds had a wild walk-off win of their own against the Padres - they nearly won a game-winning challenge on a collision at the plate in the 11th inning, but then Spencer Steer hit a game-winning, two-run home run to deliver the win
The Rangers acquired LHP Aroldis Chapman from the Royals, and lost 5-3 to the Astros in Arlington