For most of Friday night, things were looking up for the Mets. Jeff McNeil hit two doubles and drove in two runs, Jeff Brigham and Brooks Raley combined for six outs after Carlos Carrasco‘s five solid innings, and Tommy Pham‘s solo homer gave the Mets a 4-2 lead. With the heart of the Giants’ order coming up, Buck Showalter turned to David Robertson for the top of the eighth inning.
Robertson began his outing strong by striking out Wilmer Flores, who had hit a home run earlier, with a cutter. Unfortunately, Robertson’s night took a downward spiral. After going up 1-2 on Joc Pederson, Robertson induced a ground ball from the lefty, but Pete Alonso bobbled it and made a wide throw, allowing Pederson to reach. Robertson got into a two-strike count against former Met J.D. Davis, but missed low on the next two pitches, giving Davis a free pass. Then, rookie catcher Patrick Bailey stepped into the box and demolished a 1-1 curveball over the centerfield wall for a three-run homer, giving the Giants a 5-4 lead. The Mets were unable to get anything going with their remaining six outs, finishing the month of June with a disastrous 7-19 record, falling to 10 games below .500 for the first time since July of 2019.
David Robertson. Vincent Carchietta-USA TODAY Sports
“It sucks. There’s no other way to put it,” Robertson said after the game. “We’re trying. It seems like nothing is going our way, don’t get the big outs when we need them, don’t get the big hits when we need them, don’t make quality pitches when we need to, there’s just a lot of things going wrong.”
The blown save is Robertson’s third of the season – two of which came in the month of June. However, Robertson isn’t the only player at fault. This was the fifth team loss in a row in which a reliever was charged with the loss – and the 13th loss they were responsible for in the month. The 13 losses ranked as the most in the majors, and the Mets were the only team with double-digit losses –the Dodgers’ bullpen was second with eight. In fact, it wasn’t even the first stretch of five losses they were charged with in the month – the bullpen was also on the losing end of each loss from June 3-8.
There were a multitude of reasons for the Mets’ bullpens’ struggles in June, but the main culprit was the long ball. The bullpen allowed 15 home runs in June, tied for second in the majors – The Reds were first with 16 home runs. The Mets’ five blown saves were tied for third in the league, and they recorded just two saves in the month, the lowest mark in the majors.
“This clubhouse hasn’t given up, that’s for sure, these guys want to win,” Robertson said. “Nobody wants to go out there and compete at this level and get beat every day, so we’re going to try to turn it around, we’re going to continue to try to win games, we’ll show up here tomorrow and forget about today.”
Even with Robertson’s rocky outing on Friday, he finishes June with a respectable 3.08 ERA and has a pristine 2.00 mark over 36 innings this year. Raley was also strong during the month, giving up just two earned runs over 10 1/3 innings. The rest of the bullpen, however, combined for an ugly 5.07 ERA over 71 innings. When there are only two reliable arms in a team’s bullpen, the margin for error becomes razor-thin. Friday night was a prime example. With the heart of the Giants lineup up, the Mets made the right move and turned to their closer in the eighth inning. However, Robertson allowed a go-ahead home run, and the Mets’ fate was sealed. In a perfect world, where Adam Ottavino was still reliable and Edwin Díaz wasn’t injured, maybe the Mets escape that night. Unfortunately, the lack of depth behind him resulted in Robertson being the only option to pitch to the big bats in the Giants’ lineup. With the Mets 18 games out of first place in the NL East and 10 games out of a Wild Card spot, it’s hard to imagine them being buyers at the trade deadline. Should they get back into contention, they need to be in the market for at least one high-leverage arm.
