Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

The Mets had been swept just two times–a two-game series to the Red Sox and three games to the Cubs–from April to July. Now they’ve been swept twice in their last three series.

The Dodgers eked out the first two games of the series in 10 innings as the Mets lacked The Big Hit™ in extras. Then Los Angeles fully drubbed them in game three–a 14-4 loss that featured not one but two position players pitch for the Mets.

Not a whole lot went right, as they rarely do in three-game sweeps, but let’s look at some things that looked decent and some things that looked not so decent before the Mets head to the West Coast for seven games–four of them against these same Dodgers.

3 Up

Michael Conforto Keeps It Rolling

After a 4-for-10 Dodgers series, Michael Conforto now has hits in each of his last six games and hits in eight-of-nine games. He’s boosted his batting average 24 points in two weeks, and his OPS finally eclipsed .700. (His 1.000 OPS in August has helped.) He has seven walks to just eight strikeouts his last 15 games.

I wrote after the Nationals series about Conforto’s improved metrics (hard-hit rate and barrel percentage higher than they’ve been in any month, and things of that nature) and how the results finally came while facing the Nats. They kept coming versus the Dodgers, including the only run the Mets scored Saturday.

Walker’s Righted The Ship

Taijuan Walker had his best start of the second half this weekend, tossing 6.1 hitless innings before giving up a solo shot to new nemesis Will Smith. Two more base runners got on before Walker departed with two outs in the seventh, but his start was much needed–for the team and himself.

He had a 9.86 ERA in 21 innings post-All-Star break but righted the ship with 6.2 scoreless Saturday. His split finger fastball was particularly effective, garnering three of his eight strikeouts. He didn’t allow a hit on 24 split fingers and had nearly a 50 percent whiff rate Saturday.

It wasn’t just the split finger that was working, though. Opponents went 11-for-33 off Walker’s fastball since July 24, but the Dodgers were just 1-for-7 on the pitch this weekend. He also got four punch outs with it.

Walker kept the Mets in the game as long as he could, and Saturday was his most encouraging sign that his first couple starts out of the break were merely a stumble and not a wall.

Jake Reed Will Work

Jake Reed, the Mets’ 60th player used this season, came in clutch Sunday with three scoreless innings in relief of Carlos Carrasco. He gave the Mets some depth when Carrasco could only last two innings.

Reed was passed through the two most well-known analytically savvy organizations–the Dodgers and Rays–as well as the Angels before coming to the Mets on waivers in August. After a rough May in the minors (10 earned runs in 10.2 innings), Reed has been extremely solid across two Triple-A teams and six games with the Dodgers. The 28-year-old has just a 2.05 ERA in 22 innings since June 1.

The Mets desperately need back-end bullpen depth after yet another bullpen injury, this time to Drew Smith. Reed’s slider-heavy arsenal might be able to play.

3 Down

I don’t want to write about how the Mets struggled with runners in scoring position again (2-for-29 on the series, including 0-for-12 Sunday despite somehow scoring four runs), so here are some other things!

Cookie’s Crumbled

Carlos Carrasco’s Mets career hasn’t started out great. He hasn’t thrown more than 4.1 innings in any of his four starts, and he has just 11.1 innings under his belt to start the year. He’s allowed 13 earned runs on 18 hits and five home runs in that span.

His fastball in particular is being mashed. On fifty-seven fastballs thrown this year, hitters are 6-for-10 and ended up with an average exit velocity eight miles-per-hour faster than his career average against the pitch. The spin rates on all his pitches are down to their lowest since at least 2015. His slider, on the other hand, has been his most effective pitch (.200 BA, 36.8 whiff percentage), which is probably why he’s throwing it over 30 percent of the time–more than any other pitch.

After a five-month absence due to a hamstring injury that turned out to be a lot worse than the team originally thought, Carrasco described these first couple starts as “like spring training.” Unfortunately, the Mets needed him to be stretched out at the majors to help the rotation when they needed another guy the most. It hasn’t quite clicked so far. He’ll probably have another nine or 10 starts to end the year on a plus note.

Hitting Homers at Citi

The Mets are getting out-hit with home runs at Citi Field 63 to 50. In this series alone, the Dodgers hit eight homers and the Mets only had one–Michael Conforto’s that just made it passed the stretched-out glove of Billy McKinney.

Will Smith himself had three home runs. That’s more than J.D. Davis and Brandon Nimmo have hit at Citi all year, and that’s as many as James McCann, Dominic Smith and Conforto. Pete Alonso at one point in June hadn’t hit a Citi Field dinger at all. (He has eight now.)

The team has just be devoid of power at home with a league-worst .365 slugging at Citi. They have the least amount of doubles and triples of any team at home, too. They actually just set a record for the most games in a row without a triple.

Dom Smith Is In A Rut

Dominic Smith is 13-for-49 in August–a .265 batting average. That wouldn’t be so bad, but he has just one walk, giving him a .269 OBP. Then on top of all that, 11 of his 13 hits are singles, and the other two are doubles, giving him a .306 slugging. (Those two doubles are his only two barrels–the ideal contact scenario–in August.) That’s a .575 OPS in 14 games.

Dom has struggled for most of the year outside of a July that saw nine of his 26 extra-base hits. His barrel percentage is more than half what it was in his splendid 2020 (6.6 percent vs. 13.3 percent). But August has been his least-productive, with just a 57 wRC+.

His performance at home has been particularly tough, with just a .580 OPS at Citi Field in 185 at-bats. Luckily for him, though, the Mets have seven games in a row on the road, where Dom has an OPS that’s over 225 points higher.