“We’re going to turn this around,” Soto said.
Each day, the Mets make such an opinion harder and harder to believe.
With 13 games left, the math is finally turning against them, too. Their 3-2 loss to the Texas Rangers dropped them into a tie with the San Francisco Giants for the National League’s final wild-card spot. The Giants were 75-72 heading into their game late Saturday night, while the Mets are 76-73. Such is the Mets’ prize for losing eight straight games. That’s the worst skid of a season that also includes two seven-game losing streaks.
The Mets, with so much star power that veterans keep proclaiming it the most talented roster they’ve been a part of, look like a playoff team each night — until they take the field.
Then they play like a team unworthy of making the playoffs.
Edwin Díaz and Tyler Rogers combined to allow three runs in the final two innings against the Rangers on Saturday. (Wendell Cruz / Imagn Images)
It’s gone this way for a while now. In mid-June, the Mets owned baseball’s best record. Since June 13, they are 31-49, which is the third-worst mark in the majors over that span.
“I don’t know what else to do right now,” Soto said.
While at Citi Field for the franchise’s “Alumni Classic Game” on Saturday, former Mets players from 2007 fielded questions about that year’s collapse. Carlos Beltrán said this year’s team was going through the same thing and urged them to “just go for it” and not be “timid.” There are some similarities between that year’s club, which blew a seven-game lead with 17 games to play, and this one. But the current Mets’ version isn’t so much of a sudden collapse as it is an erosion.
The gradual destruction of the Mets’ chances on Saturday started after manager Carlos Mendoza removed starter Brandon Sproat. The rookie right-hander, expertly using his fastball inside, held the Rangers scoreless through six innings with just 70 pitches.
Citing a significant velocity dip from Sproat, plus some hard contact in the sixth inning, Mendoza went to his bullpen. In his first start last week, both Sproat’s sinker and four-seam fastball averaged around 96 mph. On Saturday, he was consistently sitting in the upper 90s. In the sixth inning, Sproat threw one sinker (93.7 mph) and one four-seam fastball (93 mph). He gave up two hard-hit balls (106 mph, 95.3 mph, both outs). Mendoza said after the game nothing was physically wrong with Sproat.
It seemed last year that Mendoza had great touch for such decisions. When he made a pitching move, it seemed to always work. That hasn’t been the case this year. It didn’t work on Saturday. Brooks Raley pitched a scoreless seventh inning, but over the final two innings, Tyler Rogers and Edwin Díaz combined to allow three runs.
It’d be one thing if that was the extent of the reason behind the Mets’ loss. It wasn’t. They also played the kind of game unbecoming of a team with playoff aspirations.
The Mets do not do the little things. They give up too many free bases. They don’t make enough plays.
The examples piled up. Brett Baty was picked off second base (and didn’t slide) for the first out in the bottom of the sixth inning. The Mets had a runner on second base with none out in the eighth inning and failed to even move him over. The Rangers’ rally in the eighth inning started with a catcher’s interference. The Rangers’ rally in the ninth inning started with a liner Francisco Lindor said he should have caught. This is how the Mets led 2-0 after the seventh inning and still lost.
“Fundamentally, obviously, we are not playing good baseball right now,” Mendoza said.
For a team that considers itself playoff-worthy, how does that happen at such a critical juncture? And what does it say about the team that it does happen?
“At times it can just feel like it’s a snowball effect, where it’s just one after the other one,” Lindor said. “We stop it, and then all of a sudden, something else happens.”
Asked what his messaging would be for Mets fans, Soto said, “Keep hoping.” He added, “We are playing hard, busting our ass.” Throughout the slide, the Mets have insisted their preparation is strong. Things, they say, just sometimes haven’t gone their way. It will change, they say.
“We’ve got to get going here — fast,” Mendoza said.
Time is running out for all of that to happen.
And after more than three months, it’s hard to believe that it will.
(Top photo of Juan Soto: Elsa / Getty Images)
