The Mets have no pulse right now...
The Mets offense had another poor showing in a quiet 3-2 loss on Tuesday
What’s up with the Mets? ⚾️
The Mets lost again - they were edged 3-2 by the Guardians at Citi Field on Tuesday night (box)
The Mets jumped out to a 2-0 lead in this one, but didn’t do another thing at the plate after the second inning - they mustered three singles and a double the entire night
Clay Holmes pitched well over five innings, allowing only two runs on three hits, and the bullpen combined to allow only one run over four innings. But the Mets offense went silent after the fourth inning, going without a hit the rest of the way
The Mets have lost seven of their last eight games and each of their last three series. They still remain winless on the season when trailing after eight innings
The Just Mets Podcast 🎙️
This week’s episode of The Just Mets Podcast is unlocked & free for all! Listen as The Athletic’s Will Sammon talks about the club’s action (and inaction) at the trade deadline.
Playoff Race 🏁
The Mets lost while the Phillies won again on Monday night, putting the Mets 2.5 games out of first place in the NL East.
The Mets are 2.5 games behind the Cubs for the first Wild Card, are tied the Padres of the second Wild Card, and are three games ahead of the Reds for a playoff spot.
Per FanGraphs, the Mets have an 89.3 percent chance of making it to the playoffs in 2025:
Who’s Hot 🔥
Pete Alonso has hits in four of his last five games with three home runs and 10 RBI
Who’s Cold 🧊
Pretty much everyone else in the lineup…
Play of the Game 🌟
I am going with Juan Soto leading off the eighth inning with the Mets down 3-2, and taking a fastball down the middle for strike three.
That at-bat pretty much sums up the Mets offense and summed up their performance on Tuesday. That inning was also the Mets’ true last chance on the night since the meat of the order was coming up, and that’s the only part of the lineup that gives the Mets an actual prayer to score runs, albeit a faint one.
I just don’t know what he was looking for in that sequence. He’s one of the best hitters in the game who is chasing way too many pitches at the top or above the strike zone, and not attacking strikes in the middle of the strike zone with consistency when it matters most, like in the eighth inning of a 3-2 game.
I am not even going to post the video of it - that's how aggravating that at-bat was. All you have to do is look at the location of pitch 1 and 5 in the sequence to know the story here.
Down on the Farm 🌾
RHP Nolan McLean (No. 3 Prospect, Triple-A): 5.2 IP, 1 H, 3 BB, 7 K
RHP Jonah Tong (No. 2 Prospect, Double-A): 5 IP, 3 H, 2 BB, 8 K
RHP Joel Díaz (High-A): 5.2 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 4 K
OF John Bay (Single-A): 1-for-3, HR, 3 RBI
BOX SCORES
Single-A STL | High-A BRK | Double-A BNG | Triple-A SYR
Today’s Game 🗓️
Match-up: Mets (63-51) vs. Guardians (58-55)
Where: Citi Field — Flushing, NY
Starters: LHP David Peterson (7-4, 2.83 ERA) vs. RHP Gavin Williams (6-4, 3.33 ERA)
When: 1:10 PM EDT
Where to Watch: SNY, MLB Network
No pulse… ✍️
First off, kudos to Clay Holmes for giving the Mets a very good start against a tough offense on Tuesday. There’s a lot of talk around him running out of gas, being way over his innings threshold, and his overall shaky performance over the last month, but he did his part in squashing that conversation, at least for now. He looked like the pitcher he was through the end of June, had good command of his change-up specifically, and really shut the Guardians valve off over five innings.
The Mets are obviously very cognizant of his workload and innings count - he’s at 122 innings, which is double the amount he’s ever pitched in a single season. At the beginning of the year, both Holmes and the team seemed confident this wouldn’t be an issue, presumably because they thought they could load manage him properly with the number of pitchers they thought they’d have throughout the year.
Of course, they’re down to five pitchers with only a few of them being competent right now, so that didn’t exactly work out as planned, which is probably why they haven’t been able to load manage him the way they had hoped.
Might’ve made sense to get another starting pitcher or two at the trade deadline, right? Yeah, I know the prices were high and all of that stuff.
The bullpen did a good job over four innings as well last night. Nobody can expect them to be perfect, especially when they just can’t get any length from their starters, like ever outside of David Peterson. The more they pitch, the more likely it is they’ll give up runs, and they can’t shut the opposition out every single time, even if they have to because of the offense.
Which is atrocious, by the way.
I used Juan Soto’s eighth-inning strikeout on Tuesday night as my choice for play of the game, not so much because it was the play of the game as much as it symbolized their incompetence at the plate at this point in the year.
Like dude, seriously. What were you looking for in that at-bat? It’s the moment in the game, your chance to make the difference for this club and give them a chance for a spirited win. I am not saying he needed to hit the ball 1000 feet or he could’ve won the game right then and there. But that’s the chance at a spark which, to be quite honest, has been consistently lacking with this offense for the better part of two months.
I don’t want to pick on Soto too much. That at-bat simply epitomizes their whole problem. Simply put, top to bottom, whether it’s Soto or anyone else, these at-bats are generally non-competitive. They don’t hit hittable strikes, often don’t swing at them (see Soto, Brandon Nimmo), and they’re not even hitting the ball very hard either.
Last night specifically, they had a hard enough time getting the ball out of the infield.
There’s just no pulse to this lineup, no purpose to these at-bats. They go down quietly with ease no matter who is up.
And, it’s a main reason why they’re losing all the time now.
Sure, the starting pitching is a mess despite a strong effort from Holmes last night. Anyone who reads this site knows I was pleading with the Mets to find starting pitching ahead of the trade deadline. They didn’t do that, and there is certainly no reason to expect anything different from a starting rotation that is averaging well short of five innings per start over their last 45 games.
Again, I know starting pitching was expensive, and everyone knows the strongest bullpens tend to win out in October. But the Mets have to get to October first before they can do that and between this glaring problem and the offense being so maddeningly bad now, I don’t know that they can get there, despite their statistical playoff odds (which are down six percent in the last 48 hours, I might add).
The truth is, it really didn’t matter who the Mets got at the trade deadline. They weren’t getting four new hitters, they weren’t revamping their entire starting rotation, either. The answers have to come from within the players who are here, the players who have stood out in these moments their entire careers.
That goes for Soto, Francisco Lindor, Brandon Nimmo, and Pete Alonso. They’re the ones charged with carrying the load, and outside of Alonso, none of the others are doing that right now. Sure, they have the occasional big game, but it’s now time for them to have big moments and steer the course towards the playoffs.
Because otherwise, they’re all going to be on a golf tour with Jeff McNeil on October 1, rather than charting their path through the playoff bracket.
Around the League 🚩
Taijuan Walker allowed four hits over six shutout innings as the Phillies blanked the Orioles 5-0
The Brewers ran over the Braves for their 69th win of the season with a 7-2 victory in Atlanta
Nathan Eovaldi allowed just one hit over eight innings as the Rangers blanked the Yankees 2-0
Ramon Laureano’s three RBI night helped the Padres double up the Diamondbacks in a 10-5 win
This is destined to be the most inconsequential comment of the day, and likely many other days ... but I've grown weary of seeing occasions such as Mr Smiles flashing his famous beam immediately after hitting into a rally killing double play with the bases loaded; of greeting many opposing players to 2nd base with a smile and a man hug. I think it was last year when Pete broke his bat in 2 over his knee on the way back to the dugout after a strikeout. Maybe that's the other extreme, but is way more welcome to me when I'm poised to throw my remote through the TV.
I forget which Guardian it was who managed a hit by just sticking his bat out on a pitch way out of the zone last night—but that’s the kind of situational hitting the Mets never seem to do. McNeil used to be that guy when he won the batting title—short, smart swings that found grass. Now it’s all big hacks and big misses.