Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-USA TODAY Sports

The Mets were able to avoid a second sweep in a row Wednesday when the beat the Giants in the final game of the three-game series. But the team still has lost five-of-six, and they have seven more in a row against the Dodgers and these same Giants. All the while, they’re 4.5 game back of the Braves, who can’t seem to lose and also get a couple games against the Orioles this weekend.

But the Mets can only control what happens on their field. Let’s look at how that looked in the series against the Giants.

3 Up

Marcus Stroman Rolls

Marcus Stroman delivered his best outing in a month on Tuesday night, tossing seven innings and allowing three runs. He threw a season-high 114 pitches.

The three runs came on two mistakes, which Tommy La Stella and Evan Longoria took out of Oracle Park, but Stroman was locked in for his start, notching a season-high nine strikeouts an allowing seven base runners over the seven innings.

More importantly, he pitched seven of the eight innings the team needed to throw Tuesday. He gave the bullpen, which has pitched more innings than any other bullpen over the last seven days, a break while keeping the Mets in the game. He flashed some leather, too, which never hurts.

So Does Tylor Megill

Like Stroman, Tylor Megill handed in his best performance in a month with six innings on Thursday.

Megill largely breezed through a Giants lineup outside of one three-hit stretch that brought in the Giants’ only run against the 26-year-old. His slider was particularly effective, with a 57.1 percent whiff rate and a .003 xwOBA. (The one hit off the pitch was a pop fly single by Lamonte Wade Jr. that probably should’ve been caught by one of J.D. Davis or Dom Smith.) He also struck out three batters with the slider, including Kris Bryant twice.

He’s now completed 11 big-league starts. He has a 3.21 ERA in 56 innings, and he’s accumulated 1.1 fWAR over that time. That’s fourth-highest of any starter on the team already and just a shade behind Taijuan Walker (1.4).

J.D. Davis Heats Up

J.D. Davis returned to the Mets post-All-Star break after a two-and-a-half-month absence, and he struggled despite a prolonged rehab assignment meant to combat the exact thing that happened. After going 3-for-5 in his first two games back, Davis went 6-for-37 over the remainder of July.

He’s turned things around a bit in August, producing a .289/.404/.378/.781 slash line in 45 at-bats.

He went 4-for-12 against the Giants, and he produced the biggest RBI of the year at the time with a sac fly in the ninth on Wednesday to finally put the team on the board and tie the game at one. He’s still striking out a ton (29.8 percent of the time in August, down five percentage points from July but still more than just about every month of his career), but he’s drawing walks at a rate (17.5 percent) higher than just about any month of his career, too.

Most importantly, his bat isn’t a hole in the lineup, which it was starting to be in July.

3 Down

The Squirrel Can’t Find A Nut

Jeff McNeil is struggling.

After a great July and start to August (33-for-92 with an OPS over .900 from July 1 to August 4), McNeil entered a slump under versus the Dodgers and Giants, going 3-for-26 over the six games. He’s hitting just .177 in August with a .529 OPS.

McNeil has a season-low average exit velocity (85.8) in August, and he’s walking at a lower rate than he has at any point this season. His fly-ball percentage (29.8 percent) is higher than its been in any month since his rookie season, too. He’s at his best when he’s hitting hard line drives, and he’s just getting under one-too-many balls right now.

The best swing he had on any ball in his stretch is the last one he saw Wednesday, and he drove it to right-center field for a double. Perhaps it’ll springboard him to a turnaround.

Neither Can Brandon Nimmo

The Mets’ most consistent offensive player (when he’s in the lineup) this season is struggling for the first time in 2021.

Brandon Nimmo‘s .333 on-base percentage in August is pretty out-of-character (he’s usually .380 and higher), especially when he’s hitting just .220 in 59 at-bats in August. He went 3-for-14 with just one walk against the Giants, and he has just five walks in his last 47 plate appearances (10.6 percent walk rate).

The Mets have struggled to have a stretch where five or six of their guys are clicking on all cylinders, but if Nimmo and McNeil can get things going while Conforto, Davis and Pete Alonso are swinging the bat well, they may be able to do some damage the next couple weeks.

Catcher Depth

In about 24 hours, the Mets lost James McCann and Tomás Nido–the two catchers with 403 of the Mets’ 417 at-bats from the catcher position this season–to injury.

Neither had been performing well at the plate recently (Luis Rojas admitted as much Sunday, noting McCann and Nido are defensive catchers who are trying to get it right at the plate at the same time), but losing your two primary catchers in such a short period can hurt the staff. Though McCann hasn’t been placed on the injured list yet, he was seen limping into the stadium Wednesday after back spasms the day before.

Patrick Mazeika, who’s 8-for-29 at the major-league level this season, will likely get the bulk of the playing time, followed by Chance Sisco, the Orioles’ backup catcher for parts of the last five seasons. Sisco (1 AB) has as many doubles as James McCann (101 ABs) since July 1, so perhaps they just need decent defensive bodies back there for now.