Jul 25, 2021; New York City, New York, USA; New York Mets pinch hitter Jeff McNeil (6) hits a two-run double in the sixth inning against the Toronto Blue Jays at Citi Field. Mandatory Credit: Wendell Cruz-USA TODAY Sports

The Mets dropped two-of-three to the Reds this weekend. Their bats continued to struggle, scoring eight runs over the three games. (The Mets scored 25 over three games with the Reds the week previous.) They scored just 19 runs in eight games this week against Atlanta and Cincinnati.

It was an eventful weekend, even in Mets standards, nonetheless between the trade deadline, Javier Báez acquisition and Jacob deGrom set back on Friday, Hall of Fame ceremonies and a comeback win Saturday and a dragging loss and the failure to sign Kumar Rocker on Sunday.

They’re still in first place in the NL East at 55-49 and 3.5 games ahead of the Phillies. They’re coming up on four games against the Marlins, who just traded away two of their better offensive players.

But first, let’s look at the ups and downs from the recent Reds series.

3 Up

Jeff McNeil Is Scorching

Jeff McNeil had a tough April but seemed to get back on track just before he injured his hamstring. Though he stumbled out the gate a bit after coming back from injury in late June, McNeil has been the Mets’ best (and healthiest) hitter since July 1.

Since then, McNeil is slashing .346/.411/.519/.930 with a 167 wRC+. He’s been doing it with a mix of pop and contact, with three home runs, five doubles and 20 singles.

This is the Jeff McNeil we’ve known–the guy who had a .319 batting average and .884 OPS over his first three seasons in the league. He had a 16-game hitting streak broken on Saturday, but that streak helped boost his season batting average up to .276 after being 50 points lower at the start of July.

He’s also been playing some great defense at second.

So Is Brandon Drury

It’s August 2 and one of the Mets’ best hitters the last 10 days has been… Brandon Drury.

I briefly touched on it after last series, but Drury has been insane since he was recalled from the minors on July 24.

He has 17 at-bats, and he has hits in 11 of them, including two home runs, four doubles and a game-winning single Saturday night in extra innings. His wRC+ is over 400 across his 18 plate appearances. He’s crushing breaking and off speed pitches over this span, with average exit velocities over 97 miles per hour across the two pitch types since returning.

Drury has essentially taken José Peraza’s role, but with more positional versatility. The Mets offense has had some supreme struggles as a whole, but they’ve had guys like Drury, and Peraza, and Villar, and guys like them perform well in spot starts and pinch hit appearances.

Black Jerseys

They were the second-best part of the weekend (after the nice Hall of Fame ceremony Saturday). They’ll be a highlight of four more weekends moving forward.

The highly anticipated uniforms debuted Friday, and they are a perfect change-of-pace to the Mets’ home pinstripes. They wore Friday’s jerseys with all-black hats and all-white pants that had a thin blue stripe down the outside seem. They brought back plenty of nostalgia of the late 1990s and early 2000s uniforms, which was part of the driving force behind fans pushing for their return, but they actually looked really freaking good as alternates to their current set-ups.

I mean, just look at ’em.

Just genuinely perfect.

Steve Gelbs reported Friday the reason the Mets are only wearing them for five games this season is because that’s all Major League Baseball allows for non-fully approved uniforms. Should the Mets want, they could wear them more regularly (like, every Friday night home game) in 2023, as MLB has a two-year approval process (because of course they do).

3 Down

J.D. Davis & Michael Conforto Are Slumping

The Mets offense slowed down to a crawl this week, scoring just 19 runs in eight games. They have a ton of players who aren’t playing great, but Michael Conforto and J.D. Davis–two guys expected to be boppers in the middle of the lineup–have really been struggling.

Since June 23, when Conforto returned from the injured list, the right fielder is slashing just .163/.290/.317/.604 over 124 plate appearances. That’s five weeks of poor performance. His 76 wRC+ over that span is second-t0-last on the team (among players with at least 40 plate appearances) to only Kevin Pillar.

J.D. Davis hasn’t been much better, currently stuck in a 1-for-17 rut. He’s slashing just .214/.298/.405/.703 with a 96 wRC+ since returning from the injured list on July 16.

Luis Rojas has commented on both players’ approaches at the plate and why they are or aren’t in lineups certain days. With Conforto, Rojas thought he swinging pretty well and hitting the ball hard–he was just swinging into some unlucky outs just as it looked like he was starting to turn it around. On Saturday, though, Rojas conceded Conforto will likely need a day or two off to get things right.

And that’s what Rojas did with Davis this weekend. The third baseman didn’t start the final two games of the Reds series. The manager said Davis has been speeding his swing up to try to catch up with fastballs, which then in turn is making it harder for him to read off speed pitched. He’s had the last two days off (outside of pinch hit apperances), and he’ll be back in the lineup this week against the Marlins, in all likelihood.

The Mets really need these two guys to come around.

So Where’s That Pitching Help?

The Mets front office continually said they wanted to address the pitching depth at the major-league level. That means in the starting rotation and the bullpen. By the time the deadline came and went, the only pitching the Mets traded for was Rich Hill, who’s been barely serviceable as a back-end replacement so far (10 earned runs in seven innings), and Trevor Williams, who the team immediately sent to Triple-A to start.

This meant that in two games this series, while they were facing three-run deficits late in games, the Mets asked for two innings from Anthony Banda and an inning from Geoff Hartlieb–two guys who weren’t in the organization a month ago because they were struggling with other teams.

Both pitchers gave up three runs in their appearances and put the games out of reach.

The results aren’t all that surprising, but what was surprising was the team’s lack of urgency to really address the pitching depth in the rotation and bullpen. Getting Carlos Carrasco back from the injured list isn’t an acquisition. Neither is getting Noah Syndergaard or Jacob deGrom back in September. But that’s all the pitching staff will have going for it, as no other reinforcements are on the way post-deadline.

Hamstring Strains & Other Soft Tissue Injuries

The Mets had two more players go down to hamstring injuries this weekend. Luis Guillorme was placed on the injured list Sunday after tweaking his right hammy running home on Dom Smith‘s game-tying single Saturday night. Brandon Nimmo has been able to avoid the injured list after hurting his hamstring on a diving catch Friday, but he’s yet another Met who’s suffered an injury to their hamstring.

The rest of the list includes:

  • Carlos Carrasco (during spring training–was out five months)
  • Michael Conforto (out six weeks)
  • Jeff McNeil (out five weeks)
  • Robert Stock (complete tear and needed surgery)

They’ve had their handful of oblique and lat strains, too, and that list includes the likes of Jacob deGrom, Francisco Lindor, Taijuan Walker, Guillorme (again) and Robert Gsellman.

The Mets are tied with the Giants with how many players they’ve had injured and are fourth in the league in days players have spent on the IL this season. And according to this fun Twitter account, the Mets are the top team in the league in projected WAR lost due to time on the injured list as 12.5.

These soft tissue injuries are bound to come in a game predicated on stopping, starting and sprinting as much as baseball is. It’s just a pain seeing them affect the most important players on the team.