Same old song for the Mets, a team who is not going to figure it out
The Mets kick-off the second half the same way they played in the first – bad and uninspired.
What’s Up with the Mets? ⚾️
The Mets lost their first game in the second half to the Dodgers, 6-0 (box)
New York’s offense mustered just one hit for the entire night, and went 0-for-26 as a team after Brandon Nimmo led the game off with a double that was originally ruled a home run
RHP Justin Verlander put together yet another disappointing and short outing, allowing three runs on two hits and six walks over five innings
LHP David Peterson made his first relief appearance of the season and allowed a run
The Mets struck out looking five times on Friday night and 10 times overall
New York has now lost three straight games after winning six in a row, and has fallen back to eight games out of a postseason spot
The Mets signed their two top draft choices from the 2023 amateur draft - INF Colin Houck and RHP Brandon Sproat - they also signed several other draft choices (official release)
Roster Moves 📰
Activated LHP José Quintana from the 60-day injured list
Designated LHP TJ McFarland for assignment
Who’s NOT Hot 🥶
Pete Alonso is hitting .147/.264/.347 with four home runs, three doubles, 12 RBI, 23 strikeouts, four double plays and a .611 OPS in 20 games since returning from the injured list. Since May 1st, Alonso is hitting just .186 at the plate
Today’s Game 🗓
Match-up: Mets (42-49) vs. Dodgers (52-38)
Where: Citi Field – Flushing, NY
Starters: RHP Kodai Senga (7-5, 3.31 ERA) vs. RHP Tony Gonsolin (5-3, 3.86 ERA)
When: 7:15 PM EDT
Where to Watch: FOX
The second half is just a continuation for the Mets ✍️
The Mets are broken. For whatever hope was scraped and mustered out of their six-game winning streak prior to the All-Star break, it is clear and evident that it was nothing more than a mirage.
Sometimes, bad teams just have good weeks. That doesn’t always mean things have changed or a switch has been flipped or that the vibes have suddenly improved. It’s baseball after all, and even the worst teams have to win at least 60 times in any given year.
The Mets were just a bad team who had a good week, which is evidenced by the fact that they followed their six-game winning streak with a three-game losing streak – exactly the thing that I said could not happen one week ago.
The 2023 New York Mets are exactly who they have been telling us they are throughout the entire first half: sloppy, disorganized, poorly managed, uninspired and all-around disappointing. That’s not going to simply change overnight, as the season once again is spiraling as if it were flushed down the toilet.
If you had any moderate sense of hope going into the second half, this club more than likely knocked that out of you with their ridiculous 1-for-27 performance at the plate as Justin Verlander continued to look like an over-the-hill pitcher who can barely get through five innings even after a full All-Star break to rest.
Prior to the Mets’ six-game winning streak they were 10 games under .500, 18.5 games out of first place in the NL East and 10 games out of a postseason spot. Now, over two weeks later, the club is still seven games under .500, 19.5 games out in the NL East and eight games out of the final postseason spot. Virtually nothing has changed over a 15-day sample size, the same amount of time left before the trade deadline where this team will have to make some decisions.
If they weren’t there already, New York stands out as the biggest disappointment in all of baseball now. Their greatest competition there was the struggling, star-studded Padres, but even they’ve gotten hot of late and look more likely than the Mets to figure things out.
For whatever reason, the Mets often feel doomed to fail in years where they’re expected to do big things. They managed to hold that trend off for most of last year, but returned to form this season which feels a lot like the nightmare that was 2009 (except they don’t even have injuries to blame it on!) or even 2017.
As of this morning the Mets starting pitchers are ranked 21st in the league (ERA), their bullpen is ranked 21st and their offense is ranked 17th (runs scored). They are a team that is good at nothing and below-average to bad at everything else, and that has been a consistent theme for several months now.
Unfortunately, things simply are not going to change for this team and they appear destined to run out the string with little hope of making things interesting. The only bright light at the end of the season for the Mets is the knowledge that at some point, this will all be over.
Around the League 🚩
The Angels front office will reportedly “consider” potential trades for RHP/DH Shohei Ohtani at the trade deadline
The Padres smacked the Phillies around, 8-3, thanks to four home runs
After falling behind 4-0, the Rangers blasted the Guardians with 12 unanswered runs in their 12-4 victory
Yankees CF Aaron Judge took batting practice for the first time since injuring his toe, but his club fell to the Rockies 7-2
Braves 1B Matt Olson hit a grand slam before a single out in their game was recorded as Atlanta blew out yet another team, the White Sox, 9-0
Not exactly the way you want to come out of the break. As the Chambers Brother sang, TIME!! And each game that passes they are running out of it!!