The Pitch That’s Breaking the Mets Offense

How the Mets are struggling to do damage with the exact types of pitches they want to be getting.

Once an under-the-radar issue, the Mets offensive woes have now taken center stage. As loss after loss has continued to pile up in recent weeks, the inconsistencies permeating from this lineup have only become more noticeable.

Since June 13th – the nexus point of this Mets season – New York’s offense is averaging 3.95 runs per game, ranked 29th out of 30 teams over that 46-game stretch. In that same time span the Mets offense has an 89 wRC+ (28th in MLB), -18.0 offensive runs above average (27th), 23.0 percent K% (22nd), 3.9 fWAR (24th), a .266 BABIP (28th) and 51 total home runs (22nd).

Their top hitters have all gone into a funk at the same time as each other, too, only making these struggles more pronounced. Since July 1st the quartet of Juan Soto (.709 OPS in that time), Francisco Lindor (.629 OPS), Pete Alonso (.608 OPS) and Brandon Nimmo (.683 OPS) have gone ice cold.

And, of course, the club has infamously struggled with runners in scoring position all season long as they’re collectively batting .231 in such situations this season (28th in MLB).

The question that so many fans are wondering, though, is why?

Why is a lineup that was constructed to be an elite unite that would carry the Mets struggling so much?

How is a nearly identical lineup as last year, but now with Juan Soto, averaging 0.40 less runs per game?

Well, we may never be able to dissect all the reasons for their confounding struggles on offense, but we may have honed in on one big one: The Mets can’t hit pitches down-the-middle.