Mets win their first series in a month, and a look back at another June swoon

The Mets defeat the Giants, 8-4, to win their first since in over a month. Plus, a look back at the June that cost New York their season.

Rich MacLeod

Jul 03, 2023

What’s Up with the Mets? ⚾️

The Mets defeated the Giants 8-4 on Sunday night at Citi Field to win the series (box)
LHP David Peterson was solid but was only able to complete four innings in his second start since returning from Triple-A
1B Pete Alonso went 2-for-4 with a home run (25), double, three RBI and two runs scored in the victory
Alonso announced during an in-game interview with ESPN that he will be participating in the Home Run Derby for the fourth time
LF Tommy Pham continued to stay hot, recording three hits and driving home a run
Relievers Brooks Raley, Adam Ottavino and David Robertson combined to pitch 2.1 scoreless innings to close out the game
This marks New York’s first series victory since sweeping the Phillies from May 29th through June 1st
Pete Alonso was named as the club’s lone All-Star representative

Injury Updates 🏥

LHP José Quintana (rib surgery) will make one additional rehab start and will not return to the Mets until after the All-Star break

Today’s Game 🗓

The Mets are off today. They open a three-game series with the Dbacks on Tuesday in Arizona…

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June Doom: A look back at the month that cost the Mets their season… ✍️

Over the last several years Mets fans have grown accustomed to the annual “June swoon,” a seemingly yearly occurrence where the club falls flat on their face and out of contention.

While some had hoped that this was something that MetsTwitter was irrationally worried about more than it was a reality, it has reared it’s ugly head quite often over the last few seasons.

The “June swoon” truly entered the lexicon of Mets fans in the 2018 season, when the team flushed away a surprisingly promising start with an abominable 5-21 record in the month of June – one of the worst months in the history of the franchise. And ever since, you’ll often find most Mets fans getting a little tense as the month of June rolls around on the calendar each year.

After going 5-21 in June during the 2018 season, the Mets went 10-18 in 2019, 15-15 in 2021 and 13-12 in 2022 (a winning record and yet somehow the worst month the club had last season). Just when it started to look as if the franchise was bucking the trend under the ownership of Steve Cohen, that damned June swoon reared it’s ugly head once again this year.

Over 26 games this year, the Mets compiled an awful 7-19 record in the month of June. But to properly explain just how costly this month was for the club, we have to dive in a bit further. Not only did the Mets complete a month where they went a ridiculous 12 games under .500, but they also careened themselves off a cliff in terms of the standings.

After completing their sweep of the Phillies on June 1st, the Mets were 30-27, 3.5 games behind the Braves for first place in the NL East and in sole possession of the third Wild Card spot in the National League. Following their final game of June, the Mets found themselves with 36-46 record, 18.5 games behind the Braves for first place and 10 games out of the third Wild Card spot.

For those counting, the Mets lost a colossal 15 games in the NL East standings and 11 games in the NL Wild Card standings in just one month. New York also went from being one game ahead of the Marlins to 11 games behind them after this year’s edition of the June swoon. I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen such a massive collapse in the standings by a team expected to contend in such quick fashion.

Over the last month, the Mets offense averaged 4.4 runs per game while their pitching staff allowed an average of 4.8 runs per game. New York hit .228/.298/.398 as a team in June, while their pitchers had a combined 4.43 ERA.

Overall, nothing went right for this team over the last month as they seemingly invented new ways to lose every given night. When the team hit, they didn’t pitch and when they actually did pitch well, that was the night the offense couldn’t put anything together. Not only that, but on the rare occasions that the club actually held a late lead, their bullpen managed to serve it up, blowing several games in the final few innings – the late-game collapses in Atlanta and Philadelphia come to mind there.

And that’s not even mentioning the myriad of mental errors. Time and time again, this team that was lauded for being so disciplined and fundamentally sound one year ago would make boneheaded play after boneheaded play, either physically or mentally, that would often cost this team. Whether it would be a bad passed ball, miscommunication in the outfield or just a straight up ill-timed fielding error, the pressure appeared to get to this team and it was infecting them in every single facet.

Those mental mistakes did not (and still do not) bode well on the manager Buck Showalter, the same way his several questionable in-game decisions and tone deaf postgame comments have also casted doubt on his abilities to manage a quality baseball team in the year 2023.

While it’s nice that the Mets are now coming off of their first series victory in quite some time and are 2-0 since the godforsaken month of June came to an end, this team simply did too much damage for them to be able to rebound from yet another June swoon.

Unless this team can somehow put together a second half run similar to the 2019 club – that team was an identical eight games under .500 on July 2nd of that season – there is virtually no hope that this season will turn into anything worthwhile. Even then, it should be noted that while the 2019 team did get off to the exact same start this year’s squad has and had an incredibly hot stretch in the second half to get back in it, that team still did not make the playoffs and weren’t particularly close to doing so for the majority of that September.

Unfortunately for this team, their eyes are likely going to be toward selling this trade deadline instead of ideas of grandeur this October. It’s sad for a Mets team that came into this season with such lofty expectations, but this is the hole they’ve dug for themselves. Ultimately, they got got by yet another infamous June swoon and once again, it has turned into a month that will more than likely cost them their season.

Around the League 🚩

Angels RHP/DH Shohei Ohtani continued his red-hot run, hitting his 31st home run of the season in the club’s 5-2 win over the Dbacks
The Braves whacked three home runs in their 6-3 win over the Marlins for their third different eight-game winning streak of the season
Cardinals LHP Jordan Montgomery got revenge against his former club as St. Louis shut down the Yankees, 5-1