If ever there were a day that told you it’s just not happening for the Mets this season, it was Saturday at Citi Field.
It wasn’t only that they blew a 2-0 lead after seven innings to lose 3-2 to the Texas Rangers. There have been plenty of bad losses lately, and indeed their losing streak is now eight and counting, leaving them three games over .500 with the third wild-card spot slipping away from them.
No, this was more about the way they lost, making so many dumb or inexplicable mistakes that manager Carlos Mendoza couldn’t deny the obvious.
“Fundamentally, we’re not playing good baseball,” he said at his postgame news conference.
They’re back to failing badly in the clutch as well, going 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position. Maybe that was inevitable after their hot August with the bats, but it’s crunch time now and nobody’s getting it done.
Worse, in some ways, were the glaring mistakes.
There was Brett Baty getting picked off second base with no outs in the sixth inning, the second time this week he’s been picked off a base in a close game. It just can’t happen.
There was Francisco Alvarez getting called for catcher’s interference to allow Josh Smith to reach base leading off the eighth inning — a crucial blunder that led to the Rangers’ first run.
Mendoza seemed especially upset about that one, noting that with Tyler Rogers pitching, hitters are going to let the ball get deep, not fearing the velocity.
“We don’t have the awareness there,” he said, speaking of Alvarez, “and it cost us.”
Then, with the game tied 2-2, there was Francisco Lindor’s failure to catch Cody Freeman's relatively routine line drive that started the Rangers’ winning rally. Lindor had to jump, which was why the play was ruled a hit, but even Lindor afterward said, “I should have caught it, 100 percent.”
Finally, there was Edwin Diaz making costly mistake pitches, a hanging slider to Rowdy Tellez in the eighth that was roped for a game-tying double, and a fastball in the middle of the plate that Wyatt Langford lined to right-center for what turned out to be the game-winning hit.
Add it all up and this was one of the most deflating losses of all, even in this sea of deflating losses.
It had been such a feel-good day at Citi Field, too, with a big crowd seeming to thoroughly enjoy the Alumni Classic, and then young Brandon Sproat adding to the festivities by throwing a gem in his second major league start, going six shutout innings on only 70 pitches.
It’s a great sign for the future, but it only made Saturday’s loss feel like another lost opportunity.
Sproat surely could have gone another inning, but Mendoza took him out, saying that his velocity dropped significantly in the sixth inning, as he gave up a few hard-hit balls. However, Sproat only threw two fastballs in the inning, a four-seamer and a sinker, both at 93 mph, and otherwise relied on his off-speed stuff.
By comparison, Sproat had thrown a 93 mph sinker as early as the fourth inning, though his four-seamer was as high as 97 mph earlier in the game.
In any case, Sproat said he had no issues with his arm, and didn’t really have an answer for any drop in velocity, saying “I just go out there and compete.”
Bottom line, you can’t blame Mendoza for being cautious with a 24-year-old who seems to have a big future with the Mets, and as it turned out, the bullpen was okay on this day. Brooks Raley worked a clean inning and Rogers’ inning was compromised by the catcher’s interference.
In the end, the Mets got the ball to Diaz with a lead, but his was the rare day when he didn’t have it.
The timing couldn’t have been worse, obviously, and still another head-shaking loss left the Mets’ players continuing to say they believe they’ll turn this thing around, even as their words sound more hollow by the day.
On this day, Juan Soto, whose eighth-inning home run gave the Mets a 2-0 lead and made him the first 40/30 man in team history, was particularly emphatic in saying the ball simply isn’t bouncing the Mets’ way at the moment.
“It’s crazy how the games have been going,’’ he said. “But we’ve gotta keep grinding. I still 100 percent believe this is a playoff team. We’re going to turn this thing around. Just look around at the talent. We have everything we need to go all the way.”
Soto even downplayed his personal achievement and said, “We’ve got bigger things in front of us. We’ve gotta go out and get it.”
Soto certainly sounded like he believed his words; it’s just tough for anyone who has been watching this team, especially on Saturday, to believe them.
It’s not as if this is merely some flukey stretch of losing at this point. These Mets are 18 games under .500 since June 13, so even when you factor in the occasional sparks, the seven-game winning streak in late July, or the three-game sweep of the Phillies in late August, the body of work offers little evidence that this team can suddenly go on a tear to lock down the wild card berth, never mind fulfill Soto’s promise of sorts that they can still go “all the way.”
As it is, this late-season collapse is becoming more defining of their season by the day. That reality never felt quite as inevitable as it did on Saturday.
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