The ship is sinking for the Mets, who nothing is going right for in 2023
New York drops their fifth game in a row. Plus, how you can't pinpoint just one thing that's gone wrong for the club this season.
What’s Up with the Mets? ⚾️
The Mets lost their fifth straight game and blew a three-run lead for the second straight night, losing to the Braves 7-5 (box)
RHP Max Scherzer struck out 10 but coughed up a 4-1 lead, allowing five runs on 11 hits in the loss
RHP Adam Ottavino’s inconsistent season continued as he served up a game-winning, two-out, two-run home run to Michael Harris (whose hitting .181 this season) in the 8th inning
1B Pete Alonso exited the game after being hit in the wrist by a fastball – he was diagnosed with a left wrist contusion and is considered day-to-day
LF Tommy Pham came in for the injured Alonso and went 1-for-2 with a home run (6) and three RBI
DH Daniel Vogelbach went 0-for-3 with a strikeout and a double play
New York is now 2-11 against the Braves in their last 13 games against them
Who’s NOT Hot 🥶
DH Daniel Vogelbach is hitting .091 with no home runs and one RBI over his last 17 games
2B Jeff McNeil is hitting .254/.297/.263 with one extra-base hit, seven RBI and a .553 OPS over his last 33 games
RHP Adam Ottavino now has a 4.38 ERA this season and has allowed four home runs in 24.2 innings pitched
Today’s Game 🗓
Match-up: Mets (30-32) vs. Braves (37-24)
Where: Truist Park — Atlanta, Georgia
Starters: RHP Justin Verlander (2-3, 4.25 ERA) vs RHP Spencer Strider (6-2, 2.97 ERA)
When: 7:20 PM EDT
Where to Watch: SNY, MLB Network
The Mets have too many problems to solve ✍🏼
It’s hard to find a solution to the Mets problems because they simply have too many to solve.
You can point the finger at individual players or aspects of the team (and don’t worry, we’ll get to that), but it is impossible to pinpoint one single glaring issue when analyzing this roster. Nothing has gone right, nothing is working and we’ve reached the point of the season where we probably shouldn’t expect anything to change unless this organization shakes things up.
Things have just gone so poorly for such a long stretch for the Mets, who are the spitting image of a .500 baseball team with the way they’ve played. After their fifth straight loss, they now sit at two games under .500 on the season and are 16-25 over their last 41 games dating back to April 22nd. If you want to go back even further, the Mets are now just 46-45 over their last 91 games dating back to last season.
This is not a small sample anymore – over one-third of the Mets 2023 season is complete and they have showed us time-and-time again that this is who they are. It’s time we start listening.
When the team pitches, they don’t hit. When they hit, they don’t pitch. They have all the telltale signs of a team that simply doesn’t have the “it” factor.
If you were to evaluate the club’s roster at this stage of the season, you would quickly see how much rampant underperformance is going on here. Coming into Wednesday night’s game, here’s how several Mets position players were performing compared to their career norms…
Francisco Lindor: .703 OPS (2023) | .810 OPS (career)
Jeff McNeil: .702 OPS (2023) | .814 OPS (career)
Starling Marte: .635 OPS (2023) | .792 OPS (career)
Mark Canha: .728 OPS (2023) | .772 OPS (career)
Daniel Vogelbach: .650 OPS (2023) | .746 OPS (career)
Brandon Nimmo: .793 OPS (2023) | .823 OPS (career)
Eduardo Escobar: .671 OPS (2023) | .741 OPS (career)
That’s six everyday starters – we don’t know why Vogelbach is playing this much anymore, either – and one player who was in the starting lineup until losing his job to Brett Baty who are mostly dramatically underperforming to what their entire career statistics would indicate. Lindor, McNeil and Marte in particular are each at least 100 points off their career OPS marks, and those were three of the team’s most important hitters from last season.
And while the kids did infuse some excitement into this lineup and certainly deserve to be here, they themselves have struggled recently, too. Baty had an OPS+ of 86 entering last night’s game while Francisco Álvarez (who did homer, to be fair) was coming off a home stand where he went 0-for-14 at the plate. Mark Vientos hasn’t done much hitting either, as he’s batting .188 in the big leagues so far, but has barely been allowed to play because of Buck Showalter’s strange affinity for Daniel Vogelbach, who is hitting .091 since May 11th.
After Wednesday night’s loss, the Mets offense now ranks 17th in the league in runs scored – and that’s actually an improvement from two days ago. It’s certainly saying something when Tommy Pham has the second highest OPS on the team this deep into the season. Pete Alonso has essentially been the only star player worth a damn so far this season, and one could argue he’s even been more all-or-nothing than we’re accustomed to – but that would be nitpicking at this point when there are plenty of other people to blame.
And that’s not even getting to the pitching. Who hasn’t struggled here? At one point, the Mets couldn’t even rely on their starters to get through five innings and while there has been a recent improvement, it still hasn’t been enough to turn the tide. They themselves are seeing quite a bit of regression from pitchers who they’re counting on to anchor their rotation.
Max Scherzer: 3.71 ERA (2023) | 3.11 ERA (career)
Justin Verlander: 4.25 ERA (2023) | 3.25 ERA (career)
Carlos Carrasco: 5.94 ERA (2023) | 3.92 ERA (career)
Prior to Scherzer’s performance last night where he blew a 4-1 lead and allowed five runs on 11 hits, the Mets starting rotation ranked 24th in all of baseball with a 4.81 ERA. At this point one has to wonder if building a rotation with five starters all over the age of 30 was a flawed roster building plan (spoiler alert: it was).
And while there isn’t one player to draw the ire of this fanbase, the bullpen hasn’t been all that good, either. Before last night’s game, the Mets bullpen had a 4.13 ERA as a unit – ranked 20th in the league.
When you look at things as a whole for this team, it does not paint a pretty picture. The 17th-ranked offense, 24th-ranked rotation and 20th-ranked bullpen. What does that give you? A team that's probably not going anywhere at this pace. And that’s not even touching on the manager who has had a subpar decision-making season at best to this point.
All in all, it is not a stretch to say that things have been an unmitigated disaster for the Mets to this point in 2023 with seemingly no end in sight. Considering the talent and money that has been invested into this roster over the last two seasons there is just no excuse for this team to have a worse record than teams like the Rangers, Angels, Red Sox, Marlins, Pirates and Dbacks.
And while you can make the argument that all of these things haven’t gone their way and they’re “only” two games under .500, there is always an equal possibility that things get worse rather than getting better. It was only two seasons ago in 2021 where we all waited for several underperforming Mets players to regress to their career norms only for it to never come together.
So, as of June 7th, that’s where the Mets stand right now. A rudderless ship that has no strengths and quite a few weaknesses. Maybe the course of this vessel can change at some point but that would take a whole lot of things being done very differently, and soon.
Around the League 🚩
Rays LF Randy Arozarena ripped a walk-off home run to give Tampa Bay a league-best 45-19 record
The Reds walked off the Dodgers for the second straight night, with rookie phenom Elly De La Cruz homering for the first time earlier in the game
Marlins 2B Luis Arraez raised his league-leading average to .403 in the team’s 6-1 victory over the Royals
Padres LF Juan Soto went 5-for-5 with a double and four RBI in the club’s 10-3 win vs the Mariners
Brewers SS Willy Adames homered in his first game since coming off the injured list as Milwaukee clubbed the Orioles 10-2