While the Mets have lost three straight games, their starting pitchers shouldn’t receive any blame. Matt Harvey, Steven Matz and Jacob deGrom all pitched well enough to win, but their offense failed to provide them any run support.
Over the past three games, the Mets have only scored two runs. They have recorded just 13 hits and have struck out 32 times during this stretch.
On Sunday, Harvey lost 1-0 to the Marlins despite tossing seven strong innings and allowing only four hits.
In game one of yesterday’s double header, Matz struck out eight and gave up two runs in five innings, but still suffered the loss.
And while deGrom punched out nine and walked none in six innings last night, the three runs he surrendered proved costly as the Mets managed to score only once.
It’s disappointing the Mets wasted these solid efforts, especially since Harvey and deGrom are pitching the best they have all year. Harvey has allowed only one run and six hits during his last two starts, and deGrom has struck out 33 in his last 25 innings.
While it’s hard to fault the Mets’ offense for getting shutdown by Marlins’ ace Jose Fernandez, scoring just one run against Jon Niese and Juan Nicasio is cause for growing concern.
Heading into yesterday’s games, the Mets ranked 13th in the National League in runs scored ahead of only the Braves and Phillies They also ranked 10th in OPS and 14th in average despite having the most homeruns.
The offense is no doubt hampered by injuries to David Wright, Travis d’Arnaud and Lucas Duda, but many of the team’s key players are mired in slumps. Hitters such as Michael Conforto, Asdrubal Cabrera and Curtis Granderson are all batting under .200 for the past week.
While the team’s pitching is outstanding, they can’t be perfect every night. They have the 2nd best ERA in the league, as well as the best strikeout to walk ratio.
But if the Mets want to make another postseason surge, they will once again need their offense to step up.
