The movie Groundhog Day takes place in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Bill Murray plays Phil Connors, a weatherman re-living the same day over and over again. The Mets’ version of Groundhog Day is a traveling circus, and they just finished a weekend in Milwaukee. New York got swept in a three-game series, is in the middle of a seven-game losing streak, and seems to be losing the same way over and over again.

Sean Manaea threw just four innings, giving up four runs, while throwing 87 pitches. Once again, the Mets’ lefty looked solid early on, then seemingly hit a wall and couldn’t recover. The offense put up six runs, which was an improvement over the rest of the week’s efforts, but could not muster a hit once Pat Murphy went to his bullpen in the middle of the fifth inning. And the bullpen consisted of Reed Garrett, Brooks Raley, Ryne Stanek, Ryan Helsley and Gregory Soto, having to pitch multiple games, and in the case of Tyler Rogers, every game in the series.

Sunday marked the 53rd straight game in which a Mets starter not named David Peterson failed to pitch six innings. To put it into perspective, 53 games ago, Tylor Megill and Griffin Canning were making starts for New York (and Paul Blackburn was ready in the bullpen to relieve them), Peterson had yet to throw his complete game shutout, and the Mets were in first place in the National League East.

This run of games has coincided with Kodai Senga‘s hamstring injury against the Nationals and the rehab outings of Senga, Frankie Montas, and Manaea. And while the Mets brass can’t throw the innings themselves, they can look in the mirror when it comes to how they planned those rehab outings.

For Senga, the team decided that only one rehab outing would be necessary. He threw 3 2/3 innings on 68 pitches. Deciding he was ready, New York had their ace pitcher make a big league start just six days later, and he was his typical stellar self. Senga threw four shutout innings.

However, the team decided that they wouldn’t have him increase his pitch count, as he would in a normal rehab start, and instead threw just 67 pitches.

That has led to a string of four straight starts in which Senga either hit a wall around that same total or has been touched up more than usual throughout the early innings.

Benny Sieu-Imagn Images

Manaea dealt with something similar, although over many more rehab outings. The Mets’ southpaw threw 36 pitches in his first rehab start on June 6, but by his sixth and final rehab start, he was still limited to 73 pitches in 3 2/3 innings. The team then decided that instead of stretching beyond, they would have him piggyback with Clay Holmes for a start.

Manaea was back down to 65 pitches in that outing, and ever since then has also seemingly hit a wall around that samepitch count. And on Sunday, Manaea’s fastball, which started missing bats in the low 90s early on in the game, was down to the 80s by the time he was pulled at 87 pitches.

In terms of the other two starters responsible for the streak, it’s tough to paint Montas’ lack of pitch count increase as anything other than general poor performance. And while Holmes has struggled deeper in games, considering he has sped past his previous career-high in innings, and the Mets paid him to be a back-end starter, and he’s doing so at a 3.46 ERA, it’s a much easier pill to swallow.

But for all the Mets fans clamoring for some help from the minor leagues, they aren’t being stretched out either.

Nolan McLean has gotten an out in the seventh inning just once since May, despite routinely finishing the game with pitch counts in the 70s and 80s. The same can be said about Brandon Sproat and Jonah Tong. When it comes to the minor leagues, where individual player growth comes first, their pitch counts have stayed stagnant. And if they are brought up to the majors where team success trumps individual growth, it’s unreasonable to expect that those pitch counts and innings totals won’t decrease.

Ron Darling once labeled this phenomenon the “devolving” of today’s pitcher. If the Mets don’t change this philosophy for their pitchers when the games aren’t as important, they may continue to run into more trouble when the games count and the stakes are higher.