I’d say the Mets’ offensive ineptitude is getting ridiculous, but that narrative is beyond redundant.
On Friday night, New York dropped their series opener with the Yankees 4-1, making them losers of all seven games on their current home stand. In those seven contests, the Mets have scored eight runs. EIGHT. They’ve scored three times in the last 51 innings. And they’re consistently wasting dominant start after dominant start from righty Jacob deGrom, who has to be the favorite for NL Cy Young right now.
On this night, deGrom was his usual fantastic self, but you could sense the way this one would ultimately unfold because we’ve seen this movie a thousand times.
After uneventfully retiring the Yankees in the first inning, deGrom watched Brandon Nimmo take Masahiro Tanaka deep on the later’s second pitch of the night, Nimmo’s first career leadoff home run. The SNY’s broadcast crew joked, “well, Jacob, there’s your run,” but it really wasn’t much of a joke at all; as the this game progressed it became evident that if deGrom wanted to win, he’d have to do it 1-0.
That hope came crashing down in the top of the sixth, but it was in no way the fault of deGrom. With one out, Tanaka grounded a ball to the right side of the infield that first baseman Adrian Gonzalez ranged far to his right to attempt to field. After getting to the ball, Gonzalez lost the handle during the transfer and was unable to get a throw off to deGrom covering at first, allowing the Yankees pitcher to reach on an error. Three batters later, Tanaka would score on an Aaron Judge sacrifice fly, tying the game with an unearned run. The tally did not come without a cost for the Bombers however, as Tanaka would have to leave the game with a dual-hamstring injury suffered while running the bases.
That score would hold into the seventh when the Mets got a little bit of a threat going against Chad Green. After the first two New York hitters were retired, Todd Frazier and Jay Bruce each singled to give Devin Mesoraco a chance to put the home team back ahead. After taking a couple close offerings to work the count, Mesoraco was ultimately blown away with a high fastball, ending the threat and adding to the Mets’ offensive misery. The following inning, deGrom retired the first two Yankee hitters before Gleyber Torres singled through the left side of the infield, bringing Brett Gardner to the plate.
While deGrom has been masterful from Day 1 in 2018, it’s unreasonable to expect him to be literally perfect, and on his first mistake of the evening, Gardner deposited a 1-0 change-up into the right field seats, ruining deGrom’s night and giving visitors a 3-1 lead that may as well have been 100-1. Giancarlo Stanton added a home run off Paul Sewald in the ninth to push the Yankees lead to three, and while the Mets briefly threatened against Aroldis Chapman, they ultimately went down without too much of a fight.
The Mets will look to even the weekend series with their crosstown rivals tonight behind lefty Steven Matz, who has been wonderful of late. None of that matters though, if the New York bats don’t wake up.
Photo credit: Andy Marlin – USA Today Sports