Mets lose again - offense, bullpen fail club in latest loss

The Mets have now lost 16 of their last 21 games, sit 16 games behind the Braves in the NL East, 8.5 games out of the Wild Card

Michael Baron

Jun 27, 2023

What’s Up with the Mets? ⚾️

The Mets lost again, this time by a score of 2-1 to the Brewers at Citi Field on Monday (box)
RHP Justin Verlander threw five scoreless albeit inefficient innings for the Mets on Monday - he now has a 1.08 ERA over his last four home starts
The Mets offense stumbled against Colin Rea and the Brewers elite bullpen - Rea allowed just a run over 6.1 IP
RHP Drew Smith returned from his ten-game foreign substance suspension, and allowed a decisive two-run home run to Joey Wiemer in the sixth inning, to which the Mets had no response to the rest of the way
The Mets offense mustered just three singles on the night, and are now 12-14 in one-run games in 2023
New York is now 6-16 in the month of June and have fallen to a season-low eight games under .500

News and Notes 📰

José Quintana says he is feeling good and is close to making his Mets debut - he is expected to return in early July
Mets pitching prospect RHP Mike Vasil was named to the 2023 All-Star Futures game roster - he is considered their 8th best prospect, per MLB.com

Roster Moves 🗞️

Recalled LHP TJ McFarland from Triple-A Syracuse
Optioned LHP Josh Walker to Triple-A Syracuse
Activated RHP Drew Smith from the restricted list

Today’s Game 🗓

Match-up: Mets (35-43) vs. Brewers (41-37)

Where: Citi Field – Flushing, NY

Starters: LHP David Peterson (1-6, 8.08 ERA) vs RHP Julio Teheran (2-2, 1.53 ERA)

When: 7:10 PM EDT

Where to Watch: SNY

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Rinse/repeat for the Mets, who are sinking into one of baseball’s historically bad stories ✍️

Well, at least Buck Showalter used his best relievers last night, right?

And, they almost won too, as Showalter said about Sunday’s abysmal loss.

Actually, they didn’t. The score might have said so, but it might as well have been 10-0.

The Mets offense fell flat yet again and a member of their bullpen made one bad pitch. The club settled for a 2-1 loss against the Brewers, their 16th loss in their last 21 games. They’re inexplicably 16 games behind the Braves for the lead in the National League East, 8.5 games out of a wild card spot, closer to the bottom of these races than they are the top.

They’re not even at the midway point on the schedule, either. Yet here we are, the $450 million Mets are creating a historically bad story for themselves.

And I say that not because we haven’t seen this movie before with the Mets. All too often there are lofty expectations for this club only to see them go belly up nearly instantaneously. Talented Met teams have been mired by poor play, poor coaching, poor decision making, poor media management, fireworks and bleach, sex toys and pot and other assorted illegal substances, and all sorts of different preposterous things that have made the Mets the Mets over the last 61 years.

But this Met team is especially different (and especially maddening) because of their unprecedented payroll. This mess is going to cost the owner (and in turn, the fans since they’re the ones ultimately footing a large portion of the bill in a variety of ways) $450 million after taxes and services.

$450 million for a team that fails the game in one way or another on a daily basis, whether it’s an inability to hit, inability for a starter to go deep into a game, inability of a reliever to make a pitch, inability to be focused and make generally routine major league plays, inability of the manager to be accountable for poor bullpen management, inability to adapt to the new rules (and a particular penchant for complaining about them too), inability to manage the roster properly, and most of all, inability to stop all of this bleeding and stop all of this complaining about the rules and simply pucker up and play better.

Nope, they can’t do that.

We can talk about all of the different things that led to the Mets falling 2-1 to the Brewers last night. Whether it was Justin Verlander’s inability to get deep into the game, Drew Smith being amped up and rusty thanks to being absent due to a sticky stuff violation, the offense, the lineup, the whatever. But in the end, it’s just more of the same, just in a different way.

It’s like, Baskin and Robbins has 31 flavors of ice cream. Sure, they all taste different, but in the end it’s all ice cream. The same butter fat and sugar that make up every single one of those flavors.

The Mets are the same 31 flavors of bad. Each one just has a different taste to it.

It’s the truth, whether they like it or not. I know the Mets players are going to continue to basically say, “we are a good team, we need to play better.” That’s good - it’s what they’re supposed to believe and say. They shouldn’t show up to the ballpark expecting to lose. And yes, theirs is still plenty of season left for them to turn this shit into gold. They’ve done it before, as have many other clubs before and after them.

Instead though, I feel like when they say, “we are a good team, we are better than this,” they’re waiting for something to happen, rather than just collectively coming together and playing better.

But if it’s going to happen as they sit 16 games out of first place and 8 games behind the consolation prize, it has to happen right now. Something needs to be done to spark this team and light a fire under their collective asses. It’s up to nobody but them. The fans don’t owe them a thing, the media doesn’t owe them a thing either. Nobody feels sorry for an organization who pompously strutted through Spring Training proud of their financial might which has belly flopped at the midway point in the schedule.

Nope, the only way for them to cure all of that is to win. And to win right now.

Around the League 🚩

Angels RHP/DH Shohei Ohtani took over the MLB lead in home runs and RBI before the club defeated the White Sox on a walk-off wild pitch
Orioles No. 3 prospect Jordan Westburg went 1-for-4 with the first RBI of his career in his MLB debut as Baltimore blew-out the Reds, 10-3
Braves RHP Spencer Strider struck out 10 batters in the club’s 4-1 victory over the Twins