The Mets were three outs away on Sunday from salvaging the finale of their three-game series with the Boston Red Sox and entering the All-Star break on a rare high note.
A win wouldn’t have done much in the standings as New York is well out of contention in what has been a lost season, but the feeling in the clubhouse would’ve been positive after Zach Thornton pitched brilliantly in just his third major league start and in line for his first career win.
But even small wins are hard to come by for the Mets this season as Francisco Lindor and Devin Williams were unable to finish the job in the ninth.
Lindor, who was responsible for driving in both New York runs with a first inning double and a solo shot in the sixth, couldn’t field a ground ball hit directly at him that could’ve easily been turned for a game-ending double play which allowed the inning to continue.
“The ball ate me up,” Lindor said after the game. “I went after it, it just took a hard hop and hit me on the palm of my hand – the palm and wrist area. I just didn’t make the play. It’s unacceptable.”
Williams went on to walk the next batter to load the bases and then walked another to bring home a run. Jarren Duran singled on a shallow fly ball that tied the game before a lineout double play bailed the Mets out. As it turned out, though, it only delayed what was coming.
New York couldn’t score in the bottom half of the inning which sent the game to extra innings where Boston scored in the 10th to take the lead. When it was their turn to bat, the Mets couldn’t even advance the free runner at second base and were swept in gut-punching fashion which culminated a first half that saw them go 40-57.
“Yeah that’s tough. Everybody in that clubhouse will tell you that right now,” said interim manager Andy Green. “Everybody’s out there wanting to win a baseball game putting everything out there.“
The blown save, while not completely his fault, was Williams’ third of the season and with one of the two runs he allowed being earned, he now has a 4.83 ERA. And after a magnificent month of June where he pitched to a 0.96 ERA across nine appearances, the right-hander has struggled again lately, owning a 10.80 ERA in four games in July.
Despite this, Green has no plans “at this point in time” of removing Williams from the closer role once the Mets resume play in the second half and pointed to the right-hander’s experience as to why.
“Devin’s done it for so long and he’s done it really, really well,” Green said. “We can look at this game scenario and say we got a double play ball, we didn’t defend behind him on that particular play. Got a blooper that fell in.
“This game is usually in our side of the ledger and it’s not and like I said it’s painful and frustrating for everybody in that clubhouse, but he did some positive things on the mound to get a double play ground ball in that situation.”
Even with the vote of confidence from his manager, Williams looked dejected after the game in what has been his second rough season in New York (the first one coming for the Yankees) after flourishing for years in Milwaukee.
“It hasn’t been fun. Not a lot of celebrating going on in this clubhouse right now, but we get to take a couple days off and show up and try to do it again,” he said.
As for Lindor, what could’ve been a great game for him and reason to believe he can turn his injury-riddled season around in the second half was completely erased following his error.
Not only is the shortstop slashing just .216/.298/.373 in 40 games this year, his defense and concentration has been suspect this season even before his injury – certainly odd for a two-time Gold Glove winner still in the prime of his career.
“Comes down to I gotta be better, I gotta execute,” Lindor said. “Pitchers are executing and I just gotta finish the play for them. I gotta be better, that’s what it comes down to.”
He continued: “I wasn’t able to capitalize on the good pitch that Devin made to finish the game. Ultimately that’s what it comes down to and I didn’t finish the play and it’s unacceptable. [I’m] not playing to the standard that I have, not playing to the organization’s standards. It’s just, I gotta get better.”
The Mets now have the difficult task of trying to flip the script of what was a terrible first half in the season’s final 65 games when they return to action on Thursday against the Philadelphia Phillies.
Had they won Sunday’s game that task would’ve been slightly less daunting, but now it’s going to take an entire team effort and even that might not be enough.
“It encourages us to fight, at the end of the day that’s the only thing we can do and we’re gonna try to be better,” Lindor said. “We’re gonna play as hard as we can in the second half and hopefully we put ourselves in a much better position because right now it’s not where we want to be.”
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