3 Up, 3 Down: Mets Fail to Win Eighth Straight Series

3 UP

Late Inning Shutdowns

Obviously, the Mets bullpen had their issues in this series; however, the Mets best relievers were again great.

Edwin Diaz and Seth Lugo each earned the save in their appearances. More than that, they have their breaking pitches back.

Diaz’s slider is the best it’s ever been. As a result, he’s untouchable with a 1.64 ERA and a 15.5 K/9.

It took a while, but Lugo’s got his curve back. As a result, he’s 2/2 in save chances, and he hasn’t allowed a run over his last six appearances.

What’s incredible is Drew Smith may be better than Diaz and Lugo. So far, Smith has not allowed a run over his 10 appearances.

Clearly, the Mets have some things to figure out in the bullpen, but this team has the last 2-3 innings figured out every night. With this starting rotation, you’re going to win a lot of games with this set-up.

No Cookie for You

The most pleasant surprise of this season has been Carlos Carrasco. While there was some concern after his last start, Carrasco went out there and proved he’s truly back.

In the second end of the doubleheader, Carrasco took the ball and pitched eight shutout innings saving the bullpen and helping the Mets sweep the doubleheader.

On the season, he’s 2-1 with a 3.30 ERA, 1.000 WHIP, and an 8.4 K/9. This is exactly the pitching the Mets needed from him to take this team to another level.

Buy that Man’s Jersey

When you sign a player to minor league deal with an invitation to Spring Training, you’re looking for a depth player who can have a positive impact. The Mets are getting that and more with Travis Jankowski.

In the first end of the doubleheader, Jankowski was a surprise lead-off hitter, but he more than justified that decision going 2-for-3 with three runs, a walk, and a stolen base. It was another game where Jankowski used the playing time given to have a big impact.

Overall, Jankowski has a 129 wRC+, 29.0 ft/sec sprint speed, and a 1 OAA. As he said in the postgame, he knows his role, and he brings things to the table championship teams need. He also said fans don’t buy jerseys for players like him, but given how great and passionate Mets fans are, that may change.

3 DOWN

Ump Show

Perhaps, there is no better way to describe how bad the umpiring was in this series than Max Scherzer getting thrown out of a game he didn’t even start.

Chris Bassitt had a clear strikeout only for home plate umpire Chad Fairchild to admit he got it wrong between innings. Bassitt wouldn’t get that strikeout back or the other pitches he had to now throw to get out of the inning.

Fairchild doubled down on bad umpiring the next day ruling Dansby Swanson doubled when the ball was clearly foul. Because of inane replay rules, that judgment call was not reviewable, and the wrong call directly led to the Braves first run of the game.

In the second half of the doubleheader, home plate umpire Jeremy Riggs called Dominic Smith out on a pitch at least a foot off the plate. That led to the aforementioned ejection of Scherzer.

Keep in mind, this doesn’t even account for what happened in Arizona with Madison Bumgarner and Dan Bellino. To a certain extent, what’s worst of all is Joe West is retired, and none of these events involved Ángel Hernández.

Umpiring is a hard job, but umpiring this bad is simply unacceptable at this level.

d’OH

On April 27, 2019, Travis d’Arnaud had just about the worst game any catcher has had in the history of baseball. Mind you, he should not have even been in the majors as he was needlessly rushed back from Tommy John rehab. Regardless, the Mets responded by designating him for assignment.

The rage cut was flat out wrong. After all, from 2015 onward, d’Arnaud had been a top 10 catcher in all of baseball. This wasn’t a case of he couldn’t do it with the Mets because he was doing it with the Mets (no matter how much Mets fans argued the opposite).

Since that time, d’Arnaud has gone the way of Daniel Murphy and Justin Turner making the Mets pay for their needlessly dumb and cheap decision making. Since the DFA, d’Arnaud is hitting .385/.455/.718 with four doubles, three homers, and 15 RBI against his former team.

In fact, he would be a one man wrecking crew in the series opener. If not for d’Arnaud’s doubles, perhaps the Mets come out of this series with a sweep. Then again, Jeff Wilpon had to make medical decisions and have another rage cut.

Letting the Braves off the Hook

In 1986, the Mets faced their eternal nemesis, the St. Louis Cardinals, for a four game set, and they destroyed them in a four-game sweep. The Mets sent a clear message this year was different.

This Mets team had the same opportunity. They had an under .500 Braves team actively talking about their concerns about the Mets running away with the division.

Instead, there were two bullpen meltdowns. First, it was the injured and shouldn’t have been pitching Trevor May. Then, it was Adam Ottavino, who had nothing pitching on a third straight day.

Francisco Lindor stopped hitting. Same goes for J.D. Davis who played over Dominic Smith, who is hitting. Eduardo Escobar has regressed to the mean, and Brandon Nimmo isn’t getting on base in his usual fashion.

All told, the Braves saw the Mets are beatable. It was the same exact thing which happened last year which led to the Braves buying at the deadline and winning a World Series.

The Mets need to take advantage of their next chance.