Mets wipe out against the Marlins, fall into a tie for the National League East Lead

The Mets allowed three runs on 0-2 counts to the Marlins on Tuesday

Rich MacLeod

Sep 28, 2022

What’s Up With the Mets? ⚾️

The Mets lost to the Marlins 6-4 in the opener of their brief two-game series to the Marlins on Tuesday (Box)
Carlos Carrasco started for the Mets and was ineffective from the jump, allowing two runs in the first inning - one of which came on a wild pitch on an 0-2 count - and then another two runs in the third inning on a JJ Bleday two-run home run into the right field corner
Trevor Williams relieved Carrasco in the fourth inning and allowed two runs on an 0-2 count when Jacob Stallings looped a two-run single to center in the fifth inning
The Mets did get back to 4-3 when Pete Alonso hit a three-run home run in the fourth, but all the Mets could muster from there was a run in the eighth thanks to three balks from Marlins reliever Richard Bleier
The Mets fell into a dead heat with the Braves for the lead in the National League East, who were able to take care of their own business with an 8-2 win against the Nationals
Mets manager Buck Showalter the league and both the Braves and Mets are discussing potential contingency plans for their series in Atlanta this weekend due to the forecast, but declined to say what options are being discussed

Injury Updates 🏥

Mychal Givens (COVID-19 IL) was slated to start for Triple-A Syracuse on Tuesday, but the game was rained out

The Polar Bear… 🐻‍❄️

Pete Alonso became the first Met with multiple seasons of 40 or more home runs
Alonso is one of four players to homer 40 or more times in a season for the Mets - Alonso (2019), Todd Hundley (1996), Mike Piazza (1999), and Carlos Beltrán (2006)
Alonso is the only player in the game to have multi 40+ home run seasons since 2019
He has homered in three straight games for the first time in 2022, and the fourth in his career
He is the fifth Met in their history with multiple seasons of 300+ total bases - David Wright had four, Carlos Beltrán, José Reyes and Howard Johnson each had two
His 26 RBI in September are the most in MLB, adding to his MLB-best 131 RBI in 2022
He has 16 games of three or more RBI, tying him with Paul Goldschmidt for the most such games in the National League and tied for third most in MLB

The Pennant Race 🏁

The Mets have clinched a postseason berth (9/19)

NL East lead: 0️⃣ games
Magic Number to win NL East: 8️⃣
Win pace: 1️⃣0️⃣1️⃣
- Playoff odds (Fangraphs):
  - Win the National League East: 63.6 percent ⬇️
  - Clinch a first round bye: 63.6 percent ⬇️
  - Win the World Series: 15 percent ⬇️

Today’s Game 🗓

Match-up: Mets (97-58) vs. Marlins (64-90)

Where: Citi Field - Flushing, New York

Starters: RHP Taijuan Walker (12-5, 3.53 ERA) vs. LHP Jesus Luzardo (3-7, 3.57 ERA)

When: 7:10 PM EDT

Where to Watch: SNY

Mets cough up NL East lead again, and this time they have no one to blame but themselves 📝

10.5 game lead on June 1st? Gone.

Seven-game lead on August 9th? Gone.

2.5 game lead four days ago? That’s gone now, too.

For a long stretch of this season spanning from the start of June through the end of August, it was difficult to blame the Mets for anything going on in the standings. Over those three months, New York compiled a record of 49-31. They were doing what they needed to do, the Braves simply caught up to them because they were playing an absurd brand of baseball by ripping off a 57-24 run.

That’s how they cut into the 10.5 game lead after a torrid June, and that’s how they overcame losing four-of-five games to the Mets at Citi Field in early August. Now today, the Mets wake up having been caught by the Atlanta Braves for just the third time all season long. And this time, they have nobody to blame but themselves.

This was supposed to be the month where things got easy for the Mets. From early September on, New York had the easiest schedule remaining for any team in the major leagues. After running through the LA Dodgers gauntlet, and having various long difficult stretches of their schedule in the months prior, this was supposed to be the Mets reward. Boy, have they sure squandered that.

While the Mets do have a winning record in the month of September, they are just 12-9 in their 21 games against the Nationals, Pirates, Marlins, Cubs and A’s – five teams that are a combined 172 games under the .500 mark. Over that time, they’ve been swept as many times as they’ve swept teams. Just having a modest winning record over that time span would have been borderline unthinkable entering this stretch, especially considering how fantastic a season this team had been having for the previous five months. But now it has become an unacceptable reality and it has finally caught up to them.

There are only so many duds you can throw out there vs bottom-feeding teams before a team as good as the Braves takes advantage and finally catches you.

What’s really been disheartening in these games, more than anything else in my opinion, is how incapable this team has been when it comes to overcoming deficits. In their 21 games vs these second division clubs, the Mets have overcome a deficit just ONCE – and that was a one-run deficit after the first inning in Miami on September 10th.

Where have all the comeback wins gone? Where is that tenacity and guts we’d seen for the first 130 games of the season?

A two-run deficit vs the Miami Marlins or the Oakland A’s should not be a turn-the-lights-out, game over situation. And yet over these 21 contests if the Mets fall behind, they lose. Almost every single time.

The Braves have still been doing their thing, but they’ve been remarkably more human of late. Atlanta is just 10-7 over their last 17 games, which is a significant decrease in their win frequency compared to what they’d been doing for three months prior. The Mets had a golden opportunity to grow their lead against this club over a time where maybe they were starting to slow down a bit and hell, maybe walk into Atlanta with things close to wrapped up.

But that’s not what happened.

Instead the Mets have wasted that opportunity. Too many times have they not taken advantage of a soft schedule that should have been a strength, not a headache. And now we’re all even. The division is all tied up and there’s only seven games to go. The Mets are now put in a position where they likely now have to win that crucial series in Atlanta to win the National League East.

If they do ultimately come up short in that quest, they’ll look no further than the games they squandered against teams they should have beaten more thoroughly.

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

Down on the Farm 🌾

Triple-A Syracuse was rained out on Tuesday. They will conclude their 2022 season at 11:05 AM today against Lehigh Valley

Around the League 🚩

The Yankees clinched the American League East and a first-round bye in the playoffs with their 5-2 win over the Blue Jays on Tuesday
The Phillies dropped a 2-1 game to the Cubs for their third loss in a row, but maintained a 1.5 game lead for the final wild card spot in the NL as the Brewers lost to the Cardinals 6-2 in Milwaukee - St. Louis clinched the National League Central with their win over the Brewers
The Padres improved their playoff positioning with a 10-inning, 4-3 walk-off win against the Dodgers in San Diego
Enyel De Los Santos threw an immaculate inning for the Guardians on Tuesday (nine pitches, all strikes, three strikeouts), although they fell to the Rays 6-5 in Cleveland