3 Up, 3 Down: Once Again, Mets Fail to Capitalize on Opportunities

The Mets were swept at home by the Cardinals. This seemed like a do-or-die series considering the Mets were chasing St. Louis in the standings, and it obviously didn’t go well.

Rich Hill tried his best to keep the team in the game on Monday night but the offense did not cooperate. The result was a 7-0 win by the Cardinals. On Tuesday night, the Mets carried a 3-2 lead into the eighth inning, but Jeurys Familia coughed it up. New York managed to tie it on a Javier Báez home run. Still, they lost in extras after not being able to get their free baserunner in during the 10th inning. Wednesday night had moments where the game seemed close but it never materialized. The Cardinals jumped out to a 5-0 lead and every time the Mets started clawing back, the Cardinals found a way to increase the deficit.

The Mets are now five games back of the Wild Card chase with 15 left to play. They welcome the Phillies to Citi Field on Friday night.

3 Up

I think they said Boo-ez

Javier Báez’s numbers since becoming a Met are impressive. On Tuesday night, he reached safely five times, including a game-tying homer in the ninth inning. Since the deadline, he is hitting .306/.378/.587 as a Met with a .406 wOBA and a 160 wRC+. I do think this recent stretch is not a good indicator of his future value but he is showing he is still capable of being the player he was in 2018 and 2019.

The strikeouts will always be there and his on-base percentage will always be between .310 and .320, but he does provide game-changing power at a relatively premium position. Báez has rebounded nicely from being a potential “pillow contract” candidate to looking at upwards of $100 million.

Promising Sign for McNeil? 

In Wednesday night’s game, Jeff McNeil had three hits and fell a homer shy of the cycle. It has been a pretty disastrous season for Jeff but hopefully, he can use this game as a launching pad for the next two weeks as we head into the off-season.

This season is what it is at this point, but the Mets need McNeil to be better for 2022. He does not even need to be his 2019 self because hitting .290/.350/.420 while playing four or five positions will be incredibly valuable to a team that should be in contention.

Stroman Pitched Well Again 

I try not re-using the same trends from last week, but when a team gets swept, there are not a whole lot of choices. Marcus Stroman allowed only five baserunners in his start on Tuesday night. Aside from a little blip in the fourth inning, he had a great night.

He also struck out eight batters, which is pretty good considering he generally does not get a lot of strikeouts. His ERA is 2.88 on the season with a 3.27 FIP and is well-positioned for a raise in the coming weeks.

3 Down 

Bullpen Issues, Again 

The bullpen has generally been the Mets’ friend this season, but it has become fairly tough to watch lately. This series was no different.

On Monday night, the Mets were in a somewhat manageable 3-0 deficit before Yennsy Diaz gave up four runs in the ninth to make it a blowout loss. On Tuesday night, Familia blew the lead by giving up a two-run homer to Tyler O’Neill. On Wednesday night, Seth Lugo and Heath Hembree turned a 6-3 deficit into an 8-3 deficit and an 11-4 deficit, respectively. For the most part, the Mets don’t have any starters pitching deep into games on a consistent basis like Jacob deGrom did earlier this season. It is fair to wonder if their workload has caught up to them.

Megill Struggles

Fresh off a great start against the Yankees, Tylor Megill had a first inning to forget Wednesday night. The young righty gave up five runs in the first inning as the Cardinals batted around. It is worth remembering that Megill’s previous career high in innings pitched prior to this season was 71 2/3. He also did not pitch professionally in 2020 due to the pandemic.

He’s at 120 1/3 for the season (including the minors). Given what else he has done in 2021, I am willing to chalk up his bad outing to fatigue as opposed to being “figured out.”

Not Capitalizing…Again  

Well, it’s Groundhog’s Day. The Mets had many run-scoring chances in this series. On Monday night, they had several chances to get back into the game against Adam Wainwright and the Cardinals bullpen but never broke through. In the 10th inning of Tuesday’s game, Francisco Lindor came up with a runner on third and one out but could not bring the runner in with a fly ball. On Wednesday night, just about every ball they hit in a big spot seemed to find a glove. Both Báez and Pete Alonso hit balls that looked like three-run homers, but Báez’s ball died inches before going out while Alonso’s was brought back by Lars Nootbaar.

All this failure to capitalize happened with San Diego losing a few games to the Giants and the Reds losing a few games to the Pirates. The Mets had a prime opportunity to be one or two games back right now, but this team always seems to take one step forward and two steps back. At least, they have since August. I guess the good news is, I have written their obituary about three or four times while doing these pieces but each time, they manage to draw us in before break our hearts again. I wonder what they will do this weekend to draw us back in.