Woeful: Mets get blown away by Nationals with no inspiration on either side of the ball

9 of the 11 hits from the Mets were singles while their pitching was uncompetitive again

Michael Baron

May 16, 2023

What’s Up with the Mets? ⚾️

The Mets got blown away by the Nationals 10-3 on Monday in Washington, settling for a split of their four-game series (Box)
David Peterson started for the Mets and got shelled for six runs and nine hits - his ERA is 8.08 for the year
Tommy Hunter was just as bad - he allowed four runs in only three innings
The Mets didn’t hit very much, either - they scattered nine singles around doubles from Francisco Lindor and Francisco Álvarez
Each of Starling Marte, Jeff McNeil, and Eduardo Escobar did record two-hit afternoons and combined to score two of the club’s three runs
Pete Alonso did got 1-for-4, but is just 12-for-his-last-73 with 22 strikeouts and just three home runs in his last 21 games

Roster Moves 🗞️

LHP Zach Muckenhirn optioned to Triple-A Syracuse

Today’s Game 🗓

Match-up: Rays (31-11) vs. Mets (20-22)

Where: Citi Field - Flushing, New York

Starters: RHP Justin Verlander (1-1, 2.25 ERA) vs LHP Jalen Beeks (1-2, 5.40 ERA)

When: 7:10 PM EDT

Where to Watch: SNY

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This is painful to watch… ✍🏼

Twenty Three.

That is where the Mets rank in overall staff ERA. They have the 23rd worst ERA in all of baseball, and by far the most expensive one at that.

Granted, they’ve hardly had any of their investments pitch short of Kodai Senga, but when they have pitched, outside of Justin Verlander of course, they’ve gotten almost nothing from them.

And so it went on Monday for the Mets, with their sixth starter, David Peterson, on paper going once again and demonstrating once again a complete regression from 2023. Before the Mets could even blink an eye (thanks to the pitch clock, of course), they were losing 6-1 after five innings and Peterson being shown a path to the showers.

It got worse from there of course when Tommy Hunter came in and completely blew up this game. He allowed runs in every inning he pitched and didn’t fool a soul over four innings.

In the end, it was another disaster of a game for the Mets and their pitching staff, the third time this season they’ve allowed ten runs in a game or more.

It’s hard to believe this staff has allowed five runs or more in 19 of the 42 games they’ve played. And these 42 games was hardly the firmest part of their schedule, either.

We haven’t even talked about the offense (today, anyway), either.

All I needed to see for the day was Francisco Álvarez getting picked off of first with the bases loaded in the second inning. “Rookie mistake,” they’ll say.

Nah - that’s a mistake non-contenders make. When it happened, I said, “1962 Mets!”

I don’t care who he is or what level the player is at. It can’t happen anywhere. It’s one of those things that would’ve gotten me benched in high school. That’s a matter of not paying attention, not concentrating, and not being prepared to play. Whether he or she is getting paid to do it or not.

Anyway, I’ve gotta say - it has been hard for me to watch this year. It’s ugly. It’s boring. It’s uninteresting. The offense can lull you to sleep. The pitching is mostly predictable, and not in a good way. They make mistakes they didn’t make last year (we didn’t even talk about the ball that dropped in between Brandon Nimmo and Starling Marte for no apparent reason, btw).

They are a team without that IT factor.

Over their last 21 games (which is half of their season to-date), they’ve allowed 5.2 runs per game. During the same span, they’ve scored 3.3 runs per game. That’s a 1.9 run-per-game differential on average per game, something that seems completely unfathomable given the personnel on this roster and the smarty pantsers who run the show upstairs.

The problem is, we are inching closer to Memorial Day, which is the unofficial, “what you see is what you’re going to get” day. Teams begin to assess their ability to contend and what they might need or try to sell before the trade deadline at the end of July.

If this is what we are going to get, it’s going to be a brutal summer, isn’t it?

In the end, at least from my seat, this is a team that looks old, it looks slow, it looks incompatible with what has become a new way to play baseball thanks to the pitch clock and rules in between. The starting rotation has experienced all of the problems an aging group could possibly encounter between nagging injuries, stamina and potential decline. And the offense is, well, more of that same singles-hitting, three-runs-per-hit program which, as they’ve proven, is an inefficient and mostly non-functional way to score runs.

There’s nothing they can do, either. They can call up Ronny Mauricio and Mark Vientos and whoever else they want and hope those are the right buttons, but prospects don’t always come to the big leagues and save big league teams.

Nope - if the Mets are going to turn their ship around, they’re going to need to look deep within themselves, their major league organization, and find the best versions of whatever it is these players are at this stage of their career.

From Scherzer right on down to the last player on the roster.

Around the League 🚩

Shohei Ohtani nearly hit for a cycle, and struggled a bit on the mound, but he did get a win as the Angels cruised by the Orioles 9-5 in Baltimore
The Cardinals won for the seventh time in their last ten games, this time against the Brewers in an 18-1 drubbing at Busch Stadium to improve to 17-25
Aaron Judge homered twice in the Yankees 7-4 win over the Blue Jays in Toronto
The Braves put on another power show and Charlie Morton hurled 6.2 shutout innings in a 12-0 blowout of the Rangers
Ian Kennedy elected free agency after Texas waived him last week
The Giants placed Joe Pederson on the injured list with a hand contusion