3 Up, 3 Down: Mets Finally Lose NL East Series

3 UP

Baty Arrives

In atypical fashion, the Mets called up Brett Baty after just six games in Triple-A. As we know, injuries forced the Mets to make this decision.

Whatever the reason, Baty proved he belonged. He did that immediately homering on the second pitch he saw as a major leaguer.

Baty picked up a couple of hits in the series, and he made a very nice play down the line flashing his big arm.

Baty has been viewed as the third baseman of the future. At least over these two games, the future is now.

On the Mark 

Entering the series, Mark Canha was slugging .367. He raised his slugging 25 points after hitting three doubles and a homer.

The homer was a big one as it had tied the series finale 2-2. Canha was arguably the Mets best player in the series with big hits like these.

What’s interfering with Canha is he has raised his game against the better opponents. To wit, he has an .807 OPS against teams over .500. That’s the type of player who comes up big come postseason.

Sound the Trumpets

This is a truly historic season for Edwin Díaz with him on pace to set the single season record for K% and K/9. He’s just dominant.

That’s all the more evident against the Braves. In six games against them, he’s struck out an astounding 14 of 22 batters faced, and the Braves are hitting .091 off of him.

Díaz has just completely and utterly dominated opponents this season. That goes double for the Braves.

3 DOWN

Can’t Find Nimmo

Brandon Nimmo seems to be in a complete tailspin, and you have to wonder how he gets out of it. Certainly, this more aggressive approach just doesn’t work.

Since the All-Star Break, he has a .636 OPS. Since June 1, it’s .720 with a rapidly declining OBP (once his calling card) and SLG.

While he’s been strong defensively, he had a slip up he couldn’t have. On the game winning hit, Nimmo didn’t charge the ball as hard as he could, and his throw to the cut-off was weak. The end result was a run allowed.

Nimmo is one of the Mets best players, but he’s not playing like it. The Mets need much more from him, and for a player who’s hitting free agency, he needs to be better out there.

Pitcher Injuries

The one thing that could derail this Mets team is injuries. In successive games, we saw Carlos Carrasco and Taijuan Walker suffer injuries.

Walker is not on the IL. At least not yet. Carrasco is gone for about a month. Barring setbacks, he’ll only have a few weeks to prepare for the postseason.

With those injuries, the Braves took care of business against Adonis Medina and R.J. Alvarez. That put the Mets behind the 8-ball and was a big reason why they lost the series.

Eppler’s Bullpen

Following up on the above point, the Mets lost this series partially because the Braves went to work against Medina and Alvarez. That’s an indictment on Billy Eppler.

After the trade deadline, there is no way pitchers of this caliber should’ve been in the bullpen. The Mets are World Series contenders, but they didn’t build a bullpen to reflect that.

Their big acquisition, Mychal Givens, has a 11.57 ERA in eight games.

Trevor May is still getting into game shape. That’s also part of the problem. The Mets played the game of waiting for everyone to come back from the IL and be ready to go immediately.

Maybe it works in the end, but it didn’t work in this series. You have to wonder how many more times it will be an issue.