The New York Mets dropped their series opener to the Toronto Blue Jays Monday night, 2-1. It was their second loss in a row and ninth in their last 10 games. It was another night where the pitching did its part, but the offense couldn’t do theirs. 

Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

The Mets managed five hits on the evening, only one of which came from the bottom four spots in the order on a Francisco Alvarez double in the eighth. It has become a nightly occurrence: the Mets simply couldn’t string together enough competitive at-bats to generate offense. Their only run on the night came by Francisco Lindor’s bat, his first homer since returning last week, in the seventh inning. 

Another trend continued Monday: the Mets once again seemed to be on the wrong end of the luck equation. Of the 21 balls hit harder than 95 mph, the Mets hit 14 of them, with only three of them falling for base hits. Actually, given the lack of offense, it’s remarkable how many hard-hit balls found gloves. For context, here’s how hard they hit the ball during their two biggest offensive nights of the last month:

June 14th vs. ATL

  • 8 runs scored
  • 7 balls hit over 95 mph

June 17th at CIN

  • 9 runs scored
  • 13 balls hit over 95 mph

But let’s zoom out. The Mets are currently dominating the ‘unlucky’ leaderboard which is the differential between Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA) and Expected Weighted On-Base Average (xwOBA). Of the 35 players with the highest negative differential, the Mets place five players:

For much of the season, the silver lining was that the underlying metrics suggested better days were ahead. Three months later, that optimism has worn thin. At some point, expected production has to become actual production.

For example, Bichette has put together a strong June (.898 OPS), but it hasn’t translated into wins. He went 0-for-4 Monday night, another example of how individual production and hard contact hasn’t consistently come in the moments the Mets have needed it most.