Things were shaping up perfectly for the Mets on Tuesday night.
With a struggling offense, New York got into an overworked Boston bullpen early after Walker Buehler was ejected with just one out in the top of the third for arguing a missed strike call to Juan Soto.
However, not much changed, and the Mets were unable to get anything going.
New York’s at-bats were mainly lifeless and they didn’t make much hard contact — managing just two walks and four hits while going 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position and grounding out 13 times in their third shutout loss of the season.
This is the first time the Mets have dropped three consecutive games on the year — and the biggest factor in that easily has been their sluggish offense.
“We’re going through it right now, no doubt about it,” Carlos Mendoza said. “We’re having a hard time putting guys on consistently and when we do get those guys on, we’re having a hard time getting them in — offensively, we’re going through it right now.”
New York has scored just 10 runs over their last seven games — they’ve gone 5-for-44 with runners in scoring position over that span, leaving a total of 43 men on-base, and they haven’t hit a homer since Brett Baty’s solo shot last Tuesday against the Pirates.
Juan Soto has five hits during that stretch, Pete Alonso has four, Francisco Lindor two.
Those three haven’t done much setting the table at the top, but it’s not just them — Mark Vientos and Francisco Alvarez have cooled off after a hot stretch and Brandon Nimmo is all the way down to a .719 OPS on the year.
Mendoza said he’s always looking for ways to shake things up — but for now, they just have to keep battling.
“Some things just aren’t bouncing our way,” Nimmo said. “I’ve never encountered a year where we haven’t gone through something like this. Even the 100-win season we encountered it in September — it’s just part of the game, unfortunately.”
“It happens,” Mendoza added. “We just have to continue to fight, we have to continue to work, we have to stay positive. We just have to turn the page. It might not sound right, but that’s what we have to do. We have to keep fighting and we have to keep our heads up because we have another tough one tomorrow.”
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