It’s the Pitching, Stupid

Exactly two months ago, the Mets beat the Washington Nationals 4-3 for their sixth win in a row. New York improved to an MLB-best 45-24, led the Phillies by 5 1/2 games in the division and the Cincinnati Reds were an afterthought at 35-34.

The pitching was humming with a 2.83 team ERA. Starters to that point were 30-15 with a 2.79 ERA, averaging about 5 1/3 innings per start. The relievers were 15-9 with a 2.89 ERA.

The Mets have gone 18-31 since. A seven-game losing streak followed that win over the Nationals and the club rides another seven-game skid into Atlanta on Tuesday.

“It’s a lot,” a dejected Sean Manaea said of the current losing streak after tossing four innings of four-run ball in Sunday’s walk-off loss at Milwaukee. “It’s frustrating. No one wants to be here but at the end of the day we just got to get through. There’s no way around it.”

When looking at all that’s gone wrong for the Mets over the last two months, the most obvious, hair-pulling, painful culprit is the pitching. New York has pitched to a 4.99 ERA in its last 49 games, which would rank 28th for the season, better only than the last-place Nationals and the 30-88 Rockies. Starters are 9-14 with a 5.07 ERA, averaging a shade over (gulp) 4 1/3 innings per start. Relievers are 9-17 with a 4.89 ERA.

“We gotta get our starters going,” manager Carlos Mendoza said.

The starters put together 24 quality starts (at least six innings with three earned runs or less) in the first 69 games (35 percent). The group has come up with six since (12 percent), all by David Peterson.

The most mind-boggling stat of all is that Peterson is the only starter to complete six innings in the last 53 games, a “feat” not accomplished by a team since at least 1901. Clay Holmes, who has failed to go six in 10 consecutive starts, will try to break the string Tuesday.

Some other pitching woes of the last two months:

• Frankie Montas is lugging a 6.38 ERA over six starts.
• Kodai Senga, who was leading the National League in ERA on June 12 when he strained his hamstring covering first base, missed a month and has made it through five innings once in five outings since his return.
• Manaea has given up nine runs in his last 9 2/3 innings.
• Tylor Megill and Griffin Canning suffered injuries, with Canning done for the year.

Edwin Díaz, who served up the walk-off homer Sunday to Isaac Collins, was asked to assess the last few weeks.

“It’s tough,” the All-Star closer told reporters. “We know we got a really good team here with a really good group. We just gotta stick together, stick together, keep playing baseball. We know we can turn around. On Tuesday we can come back and play really good baseball so just stick together and keep fighting.”

The Phillies are in first, six games up on the Mets, who at 63-55 have the 11th-best record in baseball. The Reds are 62-58—they haven’t precisely caught fire—but they sit two games back of New York for the final Wild Card spot. (The Phillies beat the Reds Monday. Thank you?)

It’s Not Just the Pitching

The hitters, by the way, deserve a good share of blame, too. The Mets were averaging 4.62 runs per game on June 12 and have scored 3.96 runs per game since. The before and after slash lines are .248/.332/.427 and .225/.298/.377. A .675 OPS would also rank 28th for the season, better only than another pair of last-place teams, the White Sox and Pirates.

So, they’re giving up more than two runs more per game and scoring almost a run less per game. That’s a recipe for an 18-31 stretch.

“We gonna keep saying we got the talent, we got the players,” Mendoza said. “But until we start playing better and getting the job done … We continue to believe in the guys. And we will. It’s tough. I know it’s tough right now. It’s very frustrating. We are all very frustrated but you gotta keep going. We gotta keep going. Nobody said it was gonna be easy.”