What is the root cause of the Mets problem on the mound?

Juan Soto had a historic afternoon, but the Mets couldn't seal the deal on Saturday, for a painfully familiar reason...

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What’s up with the Mets? ⚾️

• The Mets failed to complete a valiant comeback effort, falling to the Marlins 11-8 (box)

• RF Juan Soto was one of three Mets to homer yesterday, going yard twice in his fifth multi-homer game of the season, including a game-tying two-run missile in the sixth

• SS Francisco Lindor and 3B Mark Vientos also contributed homers to continue their recent hot streaks

• LHP David Peterson turned in his worst outing of the season, surrendering eight earned runs over just two innings of work

• After four scoreless innings of relief from RHP Chris Devenski and LHP Brooks Raley, RHP Tyler Rogers and RHP Edwin Díaz surrendered three runs after Soto tied it up

• Despite recent success with runners in position, the Mets went just 2-for-10 with RISP yesterday

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Roster Moves 📰

• LHP José Castillo was designated for assignment

• RHP Chris Devenski was recalled from Syracuse

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Injury Updates 🏥

• C Francisco Álvarez (fractured left pinky, torn UCL in right thumb) returned to the lineup in Syracuse on Saturday to continue his rehab assignment; he went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts

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Playoff Race 🏁

The Phillies beat the Braves yesterday, leaving the Mets six games back of the NL East lead:

The Reds, on the other hand, lost again to St. Louis, helping the Mets maintain their five-game lead for the final Wild Card spot. The Padres crushed the Twins, though, widening their gap over the Mets back to three games.

Per FanGraphs, the Mets’ 2025 playoff odds have dipped slightly to 95.7%:

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Stats of the Day 📊

• Saturday was Juan Soto’s fifth multi-homer game of the season; it’s his third consecutive season with at least five such performances. He’s also been successful in 25 of his 26 steal attempts. Per Sarah Langs, Soto’s 10 stolen bases in August are the most for a hitter in a month where they also hit 10+ HR and 25+ walks; he is also the second player ever to have at least 30 homers, 20 stolen bases, and 110 walks in their first season with a team, the first being Barry Bonds (via Greg Harvey)

• Mark Vientos has at least one RBI in all but one of his last nine games

• The Mets’ 53 homers in August are the most in franchise history

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Who’s Hot? 🥵

• The Mets have been one of the league’s best offenses this month, slashing a league-best .288/.364/.505 with a 144 wRC+ while launching the second-most homers in baseball; they have 104 extra-base hits in August, their highest monthly total of the season

• 2B/3B Brett Baty has looked comfortable at the plate recently: he’s hitting .360 with a .959 OPS in his last 15 games

• Brooks Raley has been lights out since returning from injury: in 15.1 innings, he’s 1-0 with a 1.76 ERA and a 0.91 WHIP. His only runs allowed this season came during a blowup outing in Seattle on August 15th; he’s been scoreless in every other appearance

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Play of the Game ⭐️

It may not have won the ball game, but Juan Soto finally got the Big Moment that seemed to elude him all season long.

Yesterday notwithstanding, the Mets have been absolutely unstoppable with runners in scoring position lately — see their league-leading situational 204 wRC+. That success is largely due to Soto seemingly figuring something out.

This month, Soto is slashing .409/.600/.682 with two homers, 12 RBI, and 12 walks against just six strikeouts. Those 12 walks have naturally played a huge role in his 14 RISP runs scored.

And yet, despite recent clutch success catching up to the rest of his season’s stats, it wasn’t until yesterday that Soto finally hit what felt like his biggest home run of the season.

Patience is a virtue.

Down 8-6 with one out and a runner aboard, Soto, who’d already homered in the fourth inning to bring the Mets within two, smashed the first pitch he saw out of Marlins lefty Cade Gibson’s hand. A 91 mph sinker middle-in, Soto launched a missile straight over the fence in right-center at 112 mph.

Though the Mets didn’t go on to win this contest, a moment like this reinforced what’s been demonstrated for us in recent days: this team is capable of playing from behind and evening the score. Considering certain swirling narratives, it felt imperative that this particular homer came off the bat of Soto.

Truth be told, this is the least concerned we’ve needed to be about the offense all year. We all know where the real problem lies…more on that shortly.

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Down on the Farm 🌾

• RHP Brandon Sproat (No. 5 prospect, Triple-A): 7.0 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 9 K

• 2B Yonny Hernández (Triple-A): 1-for-3, 1 HR, 1 R, 1 RBI

• CF A.J. Ewing (No. 7 prospect, Double-A): 1-for-2, 1 2B, 1 R, 1 RBI, 3 BB

• LHP Felipe De La Cruz (Double-A): 2.2 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 5 K

• 2B Marco Vargas (High-A): 2-for-3, 1 3B, 1 R, 2 RBI, 1 BB

BOX SCORES

Single-A STL | High-A BRK | Double-A BNG | Triple-A SYR

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Today’s Game 🗓️

Match-up: Mets (73-63) vs. Marlins (64-72)

Where: Citi Field - Flushing, NY

Starters: RHP Kodai Senga (7-5, 2.73 ERA) vs. RHP Sandy Alcántara (7-11,5.87 ERA)

When: 1:40 PM EDT

Where to Watch: WPIX | MLBN (out-of-market only)

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Rookie excitement aside, this pitching staff remains a problem ✍️

NY Daily News

Forgive the blunt title: there’s just no other way to slice it.

Without bludgeoning a horse that’s long-past-dead, Mets pitchers have been a consistently unreliable bunch since about mid-May.

While I’ve been just as excited about (and encouraged by) the arrivals of Nolan McLean and Jonah Tong as anyone, I’m equally bearish about what we can expect from the rest of our rotation for the remainder of the regular season.

Until recently, David Peterson had been this season’s starting stalwart. The team leader in innings pitched and the only Met with a complete game this season, Petey has been having his worst month of the year, and possibly the worst month of his career. In 31.0 IP in August, Peterson has a 6.68 ERA with a 1.55 WHIP.

Unsurprisingly, Peterson isn’t the only Mets starter who’s having a bad month: all of the Mets’ primary rotation arms are performing significantly worse than their baseline over the last few weeks. Perfect timing!

2025 METS STARTERS IN AUGUST

• David Peterson: 31.0 IP, 6.68 ERA, 31 H (2 HR), 23 R, 23 ER, 35 K-17 BB, 1.55 WHIP

• Clay Holmes: 25.0 IP, 4.32 ERA, 22 H (0 HR), 14 R, 12 ER, 20 K-10 BB, 1.28 WHIP

• Kodai Senga: 23.0 IP, 5.48 ERA, 24 H (4 HR), 17 R, 14 ER, 21 K-12 BB, 1.57 WHIP

• Sean Manaea: 24.0 IP, 7.13 ERA, 28 H (4 HR), 19 R, 19 ER, 31 K-4 BB, 1.33 WHIP

No, these aren’t the worst numbers you’ll ever see, and there are some scattered points of optimism: for example, Clay’s having a much better month this month than he did in July, and Manaea’s K/BB ratio is outstanding (though everything else is not).

However, these are not the stat lines of a championship-caliber rotation, and they don’t get much better when you look at the staff at large.

Here’s where Mets pitchers rank among the rest of the league in August:

• ERA: 4.73 (21st)

• WHIP: 1.31 (16th)

• FIP: 3.83 (4th)

• H: 222 (18th)

• 2B: 44 (21st)

• 3B: 6 (27th)

• HR: 26 (6th)

• RA: 140 (26th)

• ER: 121 (21st)

• K/9: 8.9 (12th)

• BB/9: 3.1 (14th)

• HR/9: 1.0 (6th)

• HBP: 15 (25th)

• LOB%: 62.9% (29th)

• BABIP: .299 (22nd)

Like the four starters above, the Mets’ collective stats as a pitching staff aren’t the worst you’ll come across in MLB; in quite a few metrics, they’re perfectly pedestrian. But as I’ve said before, that’s precisely the problem: a team with World Series aspirations cannot operate at a merely mediocre level on either side of the ball and expect to compete for the chip.

There’s one thing above that stands out to me above the rest: their fourth-best team FIP of 3.83. Looking at the rest of their rankings, this number is heavily influenced by their low home run total, which has been their calling card all season. Another explanation for the significant disparity between their team FIP and their ERA can likely be found in several stretches of days this month that have featured a disproportionate number of errors; to my count, about a quarter of this team’s 65 registered defensive miscues this season have occurred in the last few weeks alone.

However, errors and sloppy defense aren’t going to account for this staff’s bottom-10 allowed BABIP alone, and while errors are subjective and muddy the argument a bit, defensive lapses can really only bear so much weight here.

So, let’s dig a little deeper:

Looking into pitch-type specific data, it appears that this season’s ‘when the bats improve, the pitching does not’ adage rears its ugly head once again: as Mets hitters have been hitting the fastball better, Mets pitchers have been throwing one of the most hittable fastballs in baseball:

• Fastball slash allowed: .316/.383/.612

• Fastball wRC+ allowed: 182 (28th)

• Fastball wOBA allowed: .420 (28th)

• Fastball BABIP allowed: .362 (29th)

Naturally, it’s been their most thrown pitch as a staff this month, tossed at about a 27% clip. Terrific!

Okay, so they’re throwing their most hittable pitch most frequently…not exactly a recipe for success. That points to team-wide issues with sequencing, which is backed up by their 16.99 pitches per inning mark — Mets pitchers have been throwing the pill at the fourth-most inefficient rate in baseball this month. A high BABIP-against plus a lot of pitches per inning and a bloated ERA tell me that hitters seem to know exactly what the Mets are going to throw them at any given moment.

What makes the above more frustrating is how much the numbers improve for their second-most popular pitch — the slider:

• Slider slash allowed: .205/.277/.362

• Slider wRC+ allowed: 89 (11th)

• Slider wOBA allowed: .280 (10th)

• Slider BABIP allowed: .287 (15th)

Much better!

While not a mind-blowing batch of stats, Mets sliders (25% of pitches thrown in August) generated half the production of their fastballs. Additionally, their collective 31.3% K rate ranks fourth in MLB this month.

Which all begs the question…why isn’t it thrown more?

And going even further, their third-most popular pitch — the sinker, 24% deployment rate — is also particularly effective when thrown:

• Sinker slash allowed: .265/.343/.300

• Sinker wRC+ allowed: 97 (3rd)

• Sinker wOBA allowed: .294 (3rd)

• Sinker BABIP allowed: .312 (16th)

Unsurprisingly, Mets’ sinkers generated a 63.5% ground-ball rate in August, fourth-highest in MLB. That explains the rock-bottom slug but middle-of-the-road BABIP.

Based on the data above, it would behoove the Mets to start mixing in a few more of these pitch types to try expanding the zone and keeping hitters off-balance. If they can find a way to make them work off each other more effectively, and maybe even reintroduce the changeup a bit more (7.2% usage rate, 19% K rate, .214 BA against, 56.1% ground ball rate), I imagine you’d see a noticeable drop in BABIP and extra-base rate somewhat quickly.

Okay, so we can see that there are some overall pitching philosophy problems at play with this team…but are they mostly showing up for the starters recently, or do both the starters and relievers bear similar blame? Let’s find out:

2025 METS STARTERS V. RELIEVERS IN AUGUST

• Mets SP: 133.1 IP, 5.27 ERA, 3.53 FIP, 0.246/0.321/0.385, 28 2B, 4 3B, 12 HR, 86 R, 78 ER, 139 K-49 BB (15.33% K-BB%), .311 wOBA, .308 BABIP, 1.33 WHIP

• Mets RP: 105.2 IP, 4.06 ERA, 4.13 FIP, 0.257/0.321/0.421, 22 2B, 2 3B, 14 HR, 65 R, 54 ER, 99 K-35 BB (13.88% K-BB%), .322 wOBA, .303 BABIP, 1.34 WHIP

Hm. It would indeed appear there’s enough blame to go around everywhere.

Simply put, whether they start the game or finish it off, Mets pitchers are not executing at the level they need to be, and they haven’t been for a while. I know I’m stating the obvious here, but the underlying data validates what our eyes have been telling us for weeks, if not months now: this is a staff that needs a serious overhaul this offseason.

While the arrivals of McLean and Tong should hopefully help to stop at least some bleeding through September, the low-cost pitching experiment that helped get us to the NLCS last year has faltered in its second iteration. In the regular season’s home stretch, Hefner and the rest of the lab need to put their heads together and figure out a plan to coax the best out of every available pitch mix, because what they’re doing right now isn’t cutting it.

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Around the League 🚩

• The Red Sox and LHP Aroldis Chapman agreed to a one-year, $13 million extension with a mutual option for 2027 (NY Post)

• Kansas City’s Bobby Witt, Jr. became the first player ever to hit 20 homers and steal 30 bases in each of their first four seasons

• Aaron Judge blasted his 42nd homer of the year as the Yankees won their ninth straight road game, their longest such stretch since 1998

• Despite an excellent comeback performance from Atlanta lefty Chris Sale (6.0 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 9 K), Trea Turner notched his seventh career walk-off hit to help the Phillies beat the Braves 3-2 in Philly