Two players from the Mets showed a pulse in yet another loss
Francisco Lindor broke the Mets' scoring drought, but then they immediately stopped scoring again. Nolan McLean's seven inning gem was wasted
What’s Up with the Mets? ⚾️
The Mets mustered just one run as they dropped a pitchers’ duel to Yoshinobu Yamamoto and the Dodgers, 2-1 (box)
Nolan McLean was exceptional, allowing just one run on two hits with eight strikeouts over seven innings
Francisco Lindor led off the game with a home run, but it was the Mets’ only run of the night; Lindor had two of the Mets’ four base knocks and also stole a base
Bo Bichette and Carson Benge provided the rest of the Mets’ offense with a double and a single, respectively
Brooks Raley surrendered the go-ahead run in the bottom of the 8th inning on a bloop single from Kyle Tucker
Yamamoto struck out seven Mets and walked one over 7.2 innings; after Lindor’s homer, he retired 20 Mets in a row
Roster Moves 📰
RHP Austin Warren recalled from Syracuse
RHP Joey Gerber placed on 15-day IL (right finger blister)
Injury Updates 🏥
RF Juan Soto (right calf strain) started his running progression
OF Jared Young undergoing testing for left knee discomfort
Play of the Game 🤬
After opening the bottom of the eighth inning with a walk to Miguel Rojas and then intentionally walking Shohei Ohtani, Brooks Raley gave up the go-ahead run on a ball gently tucked into no man’s land in left field by Kyle Tucker. The Mets responded with three uncompetitive at-bats in the top of the ninth, sealing another loss.
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Down on the Farm 🌾
SS Elian Peña (No. 8 prospect, Single-A): 2-for-5, 1 RBI, 2 K, 1 SB
2B Mitch Voit (No. 7 prospect, High-A): 2-for-4, 2 R, 3 RBI, 1 HR, 1 BB
C Daiverson Gutierrez (No. 25 prospect, High-A): 4-for-5, 2 R, 1 RBI, 1 HR, 1 2B
2B A.J. Ewing (No. 3 prospect, Double-A): 3-for-5, 2 R, 1 RBI, 1 2B, 1 SB
C Hayden Senger (Triple-A): 2-for-4, 2 R, 4 RBI, 2 HR, 2 K
RHP Jonah Tong (No. 2 prospect, Triple-A): 4.2 IP, 5 H, 6 R (6 ER), 3 BB, 10 K
BOX SCORES
Single-A STL | High-A BRK | Double-A BRK | Triple-A SYR
Today’s Game 🗓
Match-up: Mets (7-11) vs. Dodgers (13-4)
Where: Dodger Stadium — Los Angeles, CA
Starters: RHP Clay Holmes (1-0, 1.50 ERA) vs. RHP Shohei Ohtani (1-0, 0.00 ERA)
When: 10:10 PM EDT
Where to Watch: ESPN
At least someone here can play this game! ✍️
BREAKING NEWS: The Mets’ offense was awful again.
Francisco Lindor started to awake from his recent slumber, but other than his leadoff mash and a few other hits throughout the night (with no runs attached), there’s only so much to discuss about the bats that we haven’t been discussing ad nauseam for a week.
In the last seven days, no team in baseball has been hitting worse than the Mets:
Team Avg.: .191 (27th)
Team OPS: .487 (30th)
Team wRC+: 40 (30th)
Team wOBA: .223 (30th)
Team BB%: 4.4% (29th)
Team BABIP: .217 (28th)
Dead horse sufficiently beaten?
With absolutely nothing to show for these last few games, the entire team is pressing — nearly everyone looks unsteady at the plate, and it’s showing up in the team-wide approach, especially in late innings. From the pathetic four-pitch ninth they offered the other day to the 10-pitch chase clinic they put on last night, this offense has shown zero fight when its back is against the wall, which it has been constantly.
Lindor said in his postgame comments that he thought the team had better, more “intense” at-bats on Tuesday than in other recent losses, and I’ll certainly buy in on the intensity: Mets hitters were swinging the bat at a near-54% clip. The problem is that they were whiffing on a collective 47% of those attempts, and the swings only got more frequent and less productive as the evening went on. That’s not a signal of a sure-footed hitting strategy.
Armchair analysis is always oh-so-easy, but the issue right now seems fairly obvious: this is an injury-riddled, chemistry-depleted lineup that’s loaded with guys who are trying too hard to have a big moment and, in the process, are leaving runs (and games) on the table. With Soto on the sidelines, only Luis Robert and Francisco Álvarez have shown any consistent pop potential — aside from those three, there’s been almost no power present throughout the daily lineup (.112 team ISO, 30th in MLB), so whatever contact is being made often isn’t effective. That was an issue I noticed during spring training, and it’s persisted into the regular season. Try as they might via various lineup configurations, this issue likely won’t be solved until everyone is at full strength at the same time, so…next month?
Well, if nothing else, at least there’s Nolan McLean.
When people say this guy’s stuff is all-time great, they’re not being hyperbolic:
Even just 12 games into his career, it feels safe to say that there hasn’t been anyone in the history of this franchise who has thrown stuff like McLean’s.
This latest start was the second-best game of his young career to date, topped only by an eight-inning, four-hit shutout last August. For the most part, McLean’s entire repertoire was landing where he needed it to: the sinker was lethal on the corners and edges, his breaking stuff was generating strikes both in and out of the zone, and he elicited a dozen total Dodger whiffs. Despite giving up a decent amount of solid contact, McLean kept the damage minimal and stayed on the attack. It seems that he’s making an increasingly concerted effort to spread his pitch shapes as evenly as possible to both righties and lefties, so I’m curious to see how that evolves as the weeks roll on.
The pitch I’m most excited to see develop is McLean’s cutter. So far, it’s generating nearly 10% more whiffs than it did last season, and he’s deploying it more frequently (11% vs. 8.8%) and on a dead-even split against lefties and righties (88% lefty usage in 2025). It’s a brutal tunnel pairing with his sinker, as their near-identical shapes arrive at the plate at slightly different velocities before breaking late in opposite directions, working both to disrupt hitter timing and minimize productive contact. Though Stuff models don’t love the cutter’s shape, it’s been plenty effective in the big leagues so far; as McLean learns to control it against hitters in both boxes this season, I anticipate it becoming a sneaky strikeout weapon for him.
While I’ve previously opined that McLean’s extreme movement could potentially be detrimental if pitches aren’t located consistently — because even the most severe shapes can get easier to identify over the course of a game — the whiff-and-called strike charts above illustrate just how effective that otherworldly action can be when it’s placed (and sequenced) with precision. McLean was throwing his entire pitch mix all over the zone yesterday, tossing 68 of his 95 pitches for strikes, 25 of them called. When he’s working that effectively, any lineup is going to have difficulty scoring.
So, I’ll leave you, dear readers, with this: there are 144 games left to play. The 1969 Mets also started 7-11, and after sitting 2-2 on April 11th, they weren’t a .500 ballclub again until Game 36. Much like the 2024 team, that championship team’s turnaround also didn’t really kick off until June. There’s just no way to know what the rest of the season has in store, certainly not less than 20 games in.
I begrudge no fan their frustrations — I have them too. There were some scattered silver linings throughout Tuesday’s game, McLean the boldest of the bunch, but as my Just Mets colleague Andrew Claudio correctly remarked in the latest Mets Therapy session, silver linings don’t end slumps; wins do. And the Mets have a lot of winning to do to make up the ground they’ve started to lose.
So, as Lindor reminded fans post-game, there’s another opportunity to change the narrative today…and then another one the day after that.
If the Mets can remember how to be as diligent at the dish as fans have been about tuning into each losing effort, perhaps a page will turn today and put this miserable chapter of Mets baseball to a merciful, emphatic end.
Around the League 🚩
Rays starter Shane McClanahan won his first MLB game since June 16, 2023 — 1,033 days ago (MLB.com)
Padres closer Mason Miller hasn’t allowed a run since August 5th, 2025, and has allowed a single hit while striking out 74% of batters faced this season (MLB.com)
Kenley Jansen surpassed Lee Smith on the all-time saves list (MLB.com)
Mike Trout, Jo Adell, and Jorge Soler hit back-to-back-to-back homers at Yankee Stadium as the Angels beat the Yankees 7-1
Dom Smith played hero for the Braves once again with a clutch three-run double to help Atlanta topple the Marlins, 6-5
Cardinals rookie JJ Wetherholt recorded his first career multihomer game in a 6-5 extra-innings victory over the Guardians
At least it seems the Mets do have their ACE. This kid throws the ball like I’ve never seen. I’d like some physics teacher to watch him and attempt to convince me the ball doesn’t move. He had the leagues best hitters looking foolish. Against a lower tier team (which the Mets are right now btw) he would’ve had 15 Ks. One run against that team? I’d take that every time. Soto surely matters. Fire Mendy.
We're seeing the exact opposite ABs from what we were led to expect. Not good. And I'm not sure what the problem is.
Pressing is the usual suspect, but that's inadequate. A great pitcher like Yamamoto will get you to chase. It was those 9th inning ABs against Vesia which got to me.
Noncompetitive.