With 13 games left in the regular season, the Mets are playing their worst baseball.
Stuck in an eight-game losing streak after Saturday's 3-2 loss to the Texas Rangers, New York finds itself on the outside looking in of the postseason, 0.5 GB of the San Francisco Giants who are just getting underway against the Los Angeles Dodgers, with no answers to fix it.
Following some duds on the mound lately, the Mets wasted an excellent performance out of Brandon Sproat in his Citi Field debut. The rookie right-hander pitched six scoreless innings and left (after only 70 pitches thrown) with a lead.
But even after Juan Soto doubled his team's lead with a mammoth solo homer in the seventh, it still wasn't enough as the bullpen, this time Tyler Rogers and Edwin Diaz, allowed the game-tying and game-winning runs in the eighth and ninth innings.
New York had its chances to extend (and in the later innings tie or retake) the lead, but failed to do so as its ugly numbers with runners in scoring position showed up once again.
The recurring losing seems to be getting to the Mets who were out of answers on why they continue to play so poorly, especially during such an important stretch of the season.
"I don't know. We’re definitely trying to figure out what’s going on," Soto said. "We’re playing our ass off every night it’s just not going in our way. It’s just crazy how the games have been going, but like I said we just gotta keep grinding and keep moving forward. There’s no excuses, we just gotta go out there and keep trying to beat them."
No matter what New York tries to do to get out of this funk, nothing is working.
And although the players say they believe they will win every time they step foot onto the field, it's getting to the point where the nightly expectation is something will go wrong for this team.
"We have the energy, we have the guys, we have everything we need to go all the way," Soto said. "The only thing is we keep losing games. I don’t know what else to do right now."
"It’s not easy right now, especially when you’re not able to finish the job in a game where you felt like you had it and then before you know it you’re behind," said manager Carlos Mendoza.
"Everybody has a sense of urgency but for some reason we haven’t been able to close out games," added Francisco Lindor.
Of course, the Mets are not out of the playoff picture and depending on what happens later tonight they could still be holding the final wild card spot. However, things need to drastically change, and quickly, for New York to have any shot of the playoffs.
Right now, losers of eight straight and a 31-49 record since being a season-high 21 games above .500, the Mets look finished.
"We gotta get going here, fast. That’s the bottom line. We gotta get the job done. Period. It’s been too long," Mendoza said.
While that's the message, it's hard to execute when the team continues to hurt itself on the field. On Saturday, it was Francisco Alvarez's catcher's interference that began the eighth-inning rally and Lindor's missed catch on a line drive that ended up coming around to score the go-ahead run. Brett Baty was also picked off in the sixth inning for the second time this week, deflating a potential rally.
"It’s just about the results now and when you’re going through stretches like this everybody has to do their part. We gotta find a way to get the job done here. Feels like fundamentally we’re not playing good baseball right now."
If New York wants to save its season from complete and utter disaster, it will need to come from everyone looking within, digging deep and simply playing better. The roster is talented enough to go on a run, but it's time the players start acting like it.
"We believe in every single guy here," Soto said. "We’re trying to do our best and trying to come through."
"We have to put it together. We haven’t put it together. Tomorrow is a new day," Diaz said.
"Everyone here is fighting for each other," Lindor said. "Everyone feels like we’re preparing the right way. Hopefully baseball turns on our side and once we grab the momentum hopefully we can maintain it."
"We still got an opportunity. You still gotta believe, right? But you got to get going," added Mendoza.
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