After being scratched due to weather concerns on Sunday and rained out on Monday, Jacob deGrom finally got to take the mound against the Marlins on Tuesday night. Miami has been something of a bugaboo for deGrom; he’s only 4-5 against them in his career, though he did memorably strike out the first eight batters in September 2014. For once, the Mets actually built a close-to-optimal lineup behind their ace, with Amed Rosario, Jeff McNeil and Michael Conforto in the first three spots in the order.

Arguably, the Mets should have just let deGrom pitch on Sunday, as he’s now set to make only four starts the rest of the way rather than five. On the other hand, I get to recap a game started by deGrom rather than one started by Jason Vargas, so I’m not going to complain.

Game Recap

Rather than dragging this out and waxing poetic about how good deGrom was at the start of this game, let’s just jump straight to the part where the BABIP fairy sprinkled her magic dust on the Marlins, as she always seems to do at Citi Field. With two outs and nobody on in the fourth, deGrom gave up an infield single, a bloop single and a double that scored two. The infield single was off the glove of Jeff McNeil (would have been a tough play) and the double was a total misplay by Austin Jackson (also a tough play, but probably should have been made). As a reminder, the Mets like Jackson, a horrifically bad defensive outfielder, specifically for his center field defense.

Fittingly, a Michael Conforto double leading off the bottom half of the inning was wasted. deGrom went back to dominating and only got a solo home run from Conforto in run support. He left for a pinch hitter in the seventh, when the Mets squandered another leadoff baserunner and left the ace without a chance for a win. He finished with nine strikeouts, two walks and three hits allowed, with both runs coming due to the BABIP misfortune and poor defense behind him in the fourth. The outing raised deGrom’s ERA on the season to a still ridiculous 1.71, and lowered his FIP to an equally insane 2.06.

Anthony Swarzak replaced deGrom and served up a solo home run to J.T. Riddle that stretched the Marlins’ lead to 3-1. Todd Frazier got ejected at some point for arguing balls and strikes (he was right). Robert Gsellman gave up two runs in the ninth, with the help of an ill-advised dive from Brandon Nimmo that turned a single into a triple.

Kevin Plawecki hit a two-run home run in the ninth and a two-out walk to Jack Reinheimer brought Amed Rosario to the plate as the tying run. Rosario could only manage a weak dribbler to second, and that was that. The 5-3 loss was the Mets’ 78th of the year and dropped deGrom’s record below .500, now at 8-9.

Thoughts from the Game

The latest installment of Jacob deGrom facts:

• Lewis Brinson’s double was the first extra-base hit on 0-2 allowed by deGrom this season.
• deGrom has now broken Leslie “King” Cole’s single-season record with his 26th consecutive start allowing three runs or fewer, a record that stood for 108 years.
• Still the most deserving Cy Young candidate in the National League. But you knew that already.

Why the Mets have decided to rush Swarzak back this season is a mystery. This is a reliever who they need to contribute to the bullpen next year if the team wants to contend next season. He’s dealt with shoulder issues multiple times, and pushing a 33-year-old to come back quickly in a lost season rather than just shutting him down and protecting him for the future is silly. It’s also a great juxtaposition against the extreme “caution” the team is taking with David Wright. Nothing fishy there at all, no sir.

Austin Jackson is terrible. He doesn’t make contact — 32.7% K%. He doesn’t hit for power — .078 ISO. He doesn’t walk a noteworthy amount — 7.2%. His defense has been a travesty for three seasons; -12.5, -7.7, and -16.8 UZR/150 in the outfield the past three seasons. He’s not a prolific basestealer or a particularly good baserunner. His presence in the Met lineup hinders the offense, and his defense might’ve cost deGrom two runs and a win last night. Given all of this, get ready for Austin Jackson, 2019 Opening Day center fielder.

Other Mets News

A report by Andy Martino today had some troubling news regarding the Mets’ GM search. First, Terry Collins is expected to assume a larger role in the organization. Terry Collins, who was one of the most inept managers in baseball largely because of his inability or unwillingness to use or develop young players, will likely be playing a larger role in player development. This is the sort of hiring that reeks of interference from Fred Wilpon.

Secondly, Martino mentions Mark Shapiro as a name to watch in the GM search. Shapiro has a long track record, serving as GM and later team president of the Cleveland Indians, and more recently as CEO and president of the Toronto Blue Jays. He’s most notable for his obsession with young cost control, which, in and of itself, is not a bad thing to focus on; young, cheap players provide the core of most winning teams. But Shapiro seems to focus more on being cheap for the sake of being cheap, rather than for the purposes of building winning teams. In short, he offers perfect cover for the Wilpon not spending money.

Friday night’s game against Atlanta represented the Mets’ latest chance to play spoiler in a division race that they themselves have long been out of, and despite yet another gem from their ace, New York continued to struggle to score runs for deGrom.

The contest went the way so many of deGrom’s 2018 starts have unfolded. After an uneventful first inning on both sides, deGrom quickly retired the first two Braves in the 2nd before one swing from Johan Camargo sent a bolt through the stadium. The Braves’ third baseman turned on a deGrom offering and deposited it off the facing of the upper deck in right field, giving the road team an early 1-0 advantage.

That score held into the third, where the Mets’ bats were able to answer. Amed Rosario led off the frame with a double down the right field line, and the young shortstop scored the tying run two batters later, when deGrom took matters into his own hands and grounded an RBI single right back up the middle.

Despite walking Freddie Freeman and allowing a single to Nick Markakis to start the fourth, deGrom quickly retired the next three to escape that threat and keep the game tied, but he wasn’t as fortunate an inning later. After striking out the first two in the fifth, Atlanta’s fabulous young duo of Ronald Acuna Jr. and Ozzie Albies both doubled, giving the Braves a lead they would ultimately never relinquish.

New York got runners via walks in both the sixth and seventh innings but neither was parlayed into a serious threat, while on the mound deGrom just kept hurling zeroes, retiring the final 10 Braves he faced following the Albies RBI double. The right hander’s night came to an end after eight, when the Mets pinch hit for him. After Anthony Swarzak hurled a 1-2-3 top of the ninth, New York needed to score in their final at-bat to extend the ballgame.

A.J. Minter entered for the Braves after successfully recording the save in the serious opener on Thursday, and while the Mets were able to generate a two-out runner when Camargo booted a Todd Frazier ground ball, Austin Jackson immediately followed with a game-ending ground ball right at Freeman at first base.

Almost incomprehensibly, while deGrom has now gone at least eight innings in five of his last nine starts, hasn’t allowed more than three runs in a game since his second start of the year, and continues to boast the best ERA in baseball; he hasn’t won since June 18.

The Mets will try to bounce back and deal their division rivals’ playoff aspirations at least a little bit of a blow behind Zack Wheeler tonight, making his first start since not being traded at the deadline.

Photo credit: Adam Hunger – USA Today Sports

Yup, we’re still here, for whatever reason. Zack Wheeler took the mound against Joe Musgrove mere hours after Jacob deGrom got screwed out of yet another win. Austin Jackson was getting the start in FF because the recently resurgent Michael Conforto has a sore thumb, leaving us less than optimistic for a better offensive performance this time around.

Game Recap

In what, once again, could be his last start as a Met, Wheeler was brilliant. He allowed plenty of baserunners, as he is wont to do, but also racked up the strikeouts while keeping the Pirates off the board. Wheeler danced around baserunners in every inning except the fourth, but struck out seven en route to six shutout innings, lowering his ERA on the season to 4.11.

The Mets have never seen a great pitching performance they didn’t want to squander, and they did their damnedest to deGrom Wheeler. Joe Musgrove made the Mets look bad, keeping them hitless for the first four innings and inducing a plethora of weak ground balls. Notably, Jackson was not the problem, despite our pregame consternation. He was the Mets’ first base runner in the second (a walk) and managed the Mets’ first hit leading off the fifth.

Wheeler has been watching deGrom get screwed over all season, and he seems to have learned his lesson. Doing his best Thanos-in-Avengers-1-post-credit-scene impression, Wheeler did it himself, driving in Guillorme with a double into the right field corner to give the Mets a 1-0 lead. That gave Wheeler doubles in back-to-back starts. As a fun aside, Jose Reyes has two doubles since June 26 in 55 at-bats.

Totally unnecessary digs on Reyes aside (editor’s note: they are necessary), the Mets squandered several opportunities to add to their lead. Singles from Jackson and Kevin Plawecki put two men on with one out in the top of the seventh, but Luis Guillorme managed only a ground out. Conforto was intentionally walked as a pinch-hitter and Amed Rosario grounded out to strand the bases loaded. They loaded the bases again in the eighth on a walk and two hit batters, but two foul pop-ups wasted that opportunity as well.

Thankfully, the Mets bullpen made those missed opportunities irrelevant. Seth Lugo tossed two scoreless innings and Anthony Swarzak closed things out with a perfect ninth, giving Wheeler’s three straight wins for the first time in his career. It’s also the first time the Mets have won 1-0 in Pittsburgh with the pitcher driving in the only run since they did so twice in one day in 1969 – Jerry Koosman and Don Cardwell were the starters for that doubleheader.

The win puts the Mets at 44-59, and they’ll have an off day today before heading to Washington on Tuesday. We’ll see if there’s anybody missing or any new faces on Tuesday as the trade deadline approaches.

Thoughts from the Game

I really don’t think the Mets should trade Zack Wheeler. Yes, he’s an injury waiting to happen, but he’s looked like a different, blossoming pitcher over the last month. More importantly, the Mets’ starting pitching depth isn’t great, and mid-rotation starters can be expensive, prohibitively-so for the Mets and their laughable budget. Unless a team shows up offering multiple top 10 prospects that can help the Mets soon, it seems like holding Wheeler to give things another go next season is the better move.

In bullpen observations, Anthony Swarzak finally looks healthy. Oblique injuries linger, so it’s not entirely surprising that he’s struggled for much of the year after getting hurt in spring training. The Mets are going to need to rebuild their bullpen almost entirely for next season with Jeurys Familia and Jerry Blevins gone and Robert Gsellman struggling so mightily, but Swarzak returning to 2017 form would be a big help.

Other Mets News

It’s not directly Mets news, but the Yankees traded a reliever with a sub-0.5 ERA at Double-A this season for $1.5 million in international slot money. This is relevant since the Mets got $1 million in slot money in the Familia trade and attempted to sell it as a big get. In reality, it’s a relatively inconsequential, low value piece and the market demonstrating as such makes an already weak return for Familia appear even worse.

Photo credit: Charles LeClaire – USA Today Sports

The night couldn’t have started much better for the Mets, as following a Brandon Nimmo walk and a Wilmer Flores single, suddenly hot Michael Conforto deposited a 2-2 pitch from Ivan Nova into the right field seats to quickly put the visitors up 3-0.

Lefty Jason Vargas, making his first start in six weeks, took the mound in the bottom of the first and encouragingly retired the top of the Pittsburgh line-up in order. But after the Mets went quietly in the second, Vargas’ follow-up inning of work did not quite go as swimmingly.

Elias Diaz led off the frame with a hit, and Freese then contributed his first dose of damage, blasting a two-run shot to left to cut the New York lead to 3-2.

After the bumpy first inning, Nova was able to settle in and navigate through the middle innings with minimal difficulty, and while Vargas tossed a 1-2-3 third, he ran into significant trouble after that. In the fourth, he gave up a single to Diaz and a pair of walks before getting Jordy Mercer to fly out to left to strand the bases loaded. But in the fifth, Vargas wasn’t as lucky. A one-out walk to Jordan Luplow chased the southpaw from the game, but relief ace Seth Lugo was not in top form. After getting his first batter, Josh Harrison, to fly to right, Lugo allowed a hit and a walk that brought Freese to the plate with two outs and the bases loaded. Predictably, he ripped one right up the middle for a two-run single that flipped the game and put Pittsburgh up 4-3.

The Mets quickly responded in the next half inning, but they did so in strange fashion.

Conforto and Jose Bautista both walked to start the road sixth, which prompted Pittsburgh manager Clint Hurdle to replace Nova with hard-throwing righty Edgar Santana. Mets’ new everyday second baseman, (more on that later) Jeff McNeil, was then asked to lay down a sacrifice bunt, and he did even better than that. McNeil dropped a perfect bunt down the third base line, causing Santana to rush the throw to first without setting his feet and, after the throwing error, New York had the bases loaded with nobody out. Kevin Plawecki then struck out for the first out, but then things got weird. Jose Reyes hit a hard line drive to left field that Luplow caught on the run, and while the ball was clearly not deep enough to score Conforto from third base, Luplow unleashed a downright terrible throw to the plate that sailed to the backstop and allowed the Mets to tie the game on the throwing error.

New York got scoreless relief work from all of Tyler Bashlor, Jacob Rhame, Jerry Blevins and Anthony Swarzak, while Pittsburgh’s Kyle Crick and Felipe Vazquez were close to untouchable, and thus this game headed to the bottom of the ninth still tied at four apiece. On came Tim Peterson, the Mets’ seventh pitcher of the evening, and he was not quite as fortunate as the previous relievers.

Harrison led off the Pirates’ ninth with an infield hit, and when Gregory Polanco pulled a hit of his own through the hole, the Mets’ chances of getting this game to extra innings suddenly looked exceedingly bleak. New York intentionally walked Diaz to load the bases and set up a force at every base, but in doing so they brought Freese to the plate, whom they hadn’t retired all night. On the first pitch Peterson threw him, Freese crushed a line drive to the right center field fence to walk off the game and send the home fans home happy.

Tonight, New York will send ace right hander Jacob deGrom to the hill against the Pirates Trevor Williams, a game that looks like a pitcher’s dual on paper.

***

Roughly an hour before this game started news surfaced that the Mets had traded second baseman Asdrubal Cabrera to the division rival Philadelphia Phillies in exchange for Double-A right-hander Franklyn Kilome. It doesn’t mean much in the Mets organization, but our own Jeffrey Paternostro estimated that Kilome, who has shown some inconsistency throughout his career and is likely to end up as a reliever, could jump right into the top 5 in the system. Considering the fact that Cabrera is a rental, Kilome could easily end up being a great deal for the Mets.

Originally in the starting lineup, Cabrera was scratched and McNeil moved to second base with Reyes joining the the starting lineup at third. With the late transaction, the Mets were obviously unable to get a roster replacement to Pittsburgh in time to be active for the game, and thus played a man short on Friday night. One man who did make it in time was new Met Austin Jackson, who is either going to replace Jose Bautista or fit in as a fourth outfielder or maybe be the new closer.

Photo credit: Charles LeClaire – USA Today Sports

Corey Oswalt got the ball for the Mets in this one and did all right for himself, giving up two earned runs on three hits over five innings, while striking out four and walking two. Even though he had only thrown 62 pitches in the fifth inning, he was pulled from the game in a questionable decision by Mickey Callaway to pinch hit Phillip Evans for him in an RBI spot, though Oswalt did apparently jam his hand while swinging the bat earlier in the game. That said, it was still a fine start for the young Oswalt, who only got the nod yesterday because of Noah Syndergaard’s virus. In fact, this was actually Oswalt’s fourth straight serviceable start. Now, keeping him in the rotation is not a total necessity, but the best argument for him to stick around is that he’s decidedly not Jason Vargas.

Anyway, the Mets were trailing 2-0 by the time the fifth inning rolled around, but that was when the offense broke out. A Kevin Plawecki RBI single got the Mets on the board, and a little later Evans drove in the tying run when he pinch-hit for Oswalt. Then — get this — the Mets executed a double steal, which feels like something we haven’t seen since Jose Reyes’s first tenure with the Mets. That set it up for Amed Rosario to drive in the two runners on a base hit to give the Mets a 4-2 lead. Jose Bautista (who I still can’t believe is actually a Met) added two more in the bottom of the sixth with a towering dinger off the second deck, the kind of prodigious home run he became famous for.

The bullpen, shockingly, handed back a couple of runs in the seventh when Tim Peterson (who I also still can’t believe is actually a Met, although for different reasons) served up a two-run homer to Freddy Galvis. Robert Gsellman came on after him and took care of business, and Anthony Swarzak handled the ninth for his second save of the season as the Mets continue to piece together the shattered remains of their Jeurys Familia-less bullpen.

As an aside, Reyes notched another single for sixth hit in last 19 at bats. If you’re scoring at home, that is a .315 batting average. Perhaps Reyes is finally rounding back into the barely-useful, tenuously rosterable bench player that he was last year instead of just the not-useful, completely unrosterable player he’s been this year. Maybe the Mets were actually right about him the whole time, and it was we, the children, who were wrong?

OTHER NEWS OF THE DAY

The big news finally came. After six days of the Mets stalling and waiting for multiple doctors’ opinions, they finally came to the decision yesterday for Yoenis Cespedes to undergo season-ending surgery in order to correct the bone spurs and calcification in both heels which have caused many of his leg problems over the years. The recovery is expected to be 8-10 months, which would put his return at around April or May of next year in a best-case scenario.

It sounds like the actual wait for the last six days was just so that the Mets could find out whether or not the contract was actually insured, which it is. So the Mets will indeed recoup a good amount of money that is owed to Cespedes over the rest of the season and the beginning of next year, similar to their current situation with David Wright. However, John Ricco would not say whether or not the money would be reinvested into the team.

The surgery is unfortunate for Cespedes, but necessary, and something that should have been done at least two months ago. This whole situation has been a total embarrassment for this entire organization, and it is their own fault. No reasonable person could have followed this saga for the last week — even being ignorant to the rest of the team’s mishandling of injuries and transparent dysfunction — and walk away with the belief that there is a modicum of organization within the Mets’ front office, or any accountability among their decision-makers. Under direction of the Wilpons, and without Sandy Alderson around to lead these misfits, the team appears to be about as organized as a kindergarten class. And much like kindergarteners, they like to point their fingers at other people (read: the players) when they do something bad.

Meanwhile, if the Wilpons are serious about contending next year, it is their absolute duty to reinvest the money saved back into the payroll for next season. Unfortunately, John Ricco’s non-answer to that question already probably tells you what they intend to do with it.

Photo credit: Andy Marlin – USA Today Sports

News broke late Friday night of an impending trade with the Athletics for closer Jeurys Familia, which was finally finalized at 3:50 p.m Saturday, just as the Yankees scored their seventh run of the ballgame. The Mets were reportedly seeking prospects in the higher levels of the minors and that’s what they will receive in Bobby Wahl, a reliever with MLB experience who’s currently in Triple-A. He’ll sit in the mid-90s and touch triple digits with his fastball to go along with a hard breaker. The Mets have a type of reliever they love to target, and Wahl fits the same mold as Gerson Bautista, Eric Hanhold and others the team has recently acquired via trade.

The other player coming to Queens (eventually) is Will Toffey, a fourth-round selection by the A’s in last year’s draft. He played his college ball at Vanderbilt but holds just a .733 OPS in his first 373 minor league at-bats, split between short-season and Advanced-A. He doesn’t fit the typical third base profile -he’s more of a line drive hitter than a home run guy- but he’s got a chance to become a second-division regular.

The Mets also acquired an apparently $1 million of international pool money, which isn’t enough to stop this from being a disappointing haul overall. The Mets already have this type of relief pitcher in the system and have been reluctant thus far to even use them. Toffey doesn’t currently project as an impact player at the major league level. There’s not much good to say about this deal, folks.

Anyway, Old Friend Yoenis Cespedes returned to the lineup Friday night but had some interesting and revealing postgame comments. He’s dealing with an issue in both heels that can only be corrected with surgery, which holds an 8-10 month recovery time. Cespedes is unlikely to ever play healthy without the surgery, and there’s no better time for him to have it than right now. The Mets are out of contention and need a healthy Cespedes if they truly want to compete next season. Running a broken down player who has worked incredibly hard to return into the lineup in the midst of a lost season is very Mets.

The even bigger story is that the Mets are publicly saying they were unaware of the chronic heel issues. This seems highly unlikely, of course, as they’ve given Cespedes two separate physicals before acquiring him and had to be aware of the severity of the injury. Manager Mickey Callaway was completely unaware of Yo’s postgame comments, which just confirms the many suspicions about the lack of communication between the front office and the coaching staff.

As for the actual baseball game, Steven Matz was tagged for five earned runs in five innings of work. Both relievers who pitched Saturday, Tim Peterson and Anthony Swarzak, each allowed a run as well. The final score was much closer than the game actually was, as Aroldis Chapman couldn’t find the strike zone and almost allowed the Mets to tie things up in the ninth inning. Yankee manager Aaron Boone pulled his closer for Chasen Shreve, who secured the final three outs and earned the save. Michael Conforto homered and Amed Rosario added another three-hit game to his resume, but the Mets only picked up five hits on the afternoon.

Photo credit: Andy Marlin – USA Today Sports 

The Mets pitching staff continued its streak of dominant outings Saturday, this time behind a 7.2-inning performance from right-hander Zack Wheeler.

While the starting rotation has been incredible throughout much of the season, the team has routinely wasted brilliant performances from almost every member of the staff (we’re looking at you, Jason Vargas). Things seem to have changed for the better recently, as the bullpen and the bats propelled the Mets to a four-win week.

Wheeler got some run support early, as Austin Voth allowed three straight singles to load the bases in the second. Offensive powerhouse Amed Rosario ripped a single to right field that brought home Wilmer Flores and put the Mets ahead 1-0.

Next up was Wheeler, who helped his own cause with a sacrifice fly to center that scored Kevin Plawecki. An RBI groundout from Brandon Nimmo increased the lead to three.

Neither team would score until the home half of the fifth, when Michael Conforto hit his 11th home run of the season. The three-run blast was the only hit of the day for Conforto, but he certainly made it count.

Jose Reyes also added an RBI single in the inning, quite possibly his biggest contribution of the season thus far.

Wheeler was efficient with his pitch count all afternoon and earned the right to head back out for the eighth inning. Trouble found him quickly though — and with no help from Reyes — and a two-run blast off the bat of Matt Adams knocked Wheeler out of the game. His final line wasn’t indicative of the effort he gave the Mets, and Wheeler has been quite the pleasant surprise after beginning the season in Las Vegas.

Anthony Swarzak recorded an out to lower his ERA to 6.32 and Jeurys Familia picked up his 17th save of the season. Familia’s looked better as of late, which could be a boon to his trade value.

The Mets have a chance to win a series for the first time since the middle of May on Sunday. Corey Oswalt will start against Jeremy Hellickson in the series finale at Citi Field.

THE GOOD

Steven Matz is healthy and pitching incredibly well this season. He’s always put up good results when he starts, but the problem with Matz has been the when he starts. Everything’s aligned for Matz this season, outside of a couple of minor issues, and he may return real value in a potential trade. The lefty turned in a quality start Saturday but wasn’t on his A-game, walking three in addition to allowing five hits. He went out and gave the Mets a chance to win, something he’s actually done a lot of this season.

Wilmer Flores picked up three of the Mets seven hits on the afternoon. A perennial fan favorite, Flores’ days may be numbered with the Metropolitans, for real this time; he’s a prime trade candidate as a platoon option against left-handed pitching, and he likely fits best with an American League team. That being said, it’s doubtful he brings back anything better than a couple of minor league relief arms.

THE BAD

Robert Gsellman’s stuff hasn’t played up as expected in the bullpen. Despite a nice start to the season, his season ERA is up to 4.44 with a WHIP of 1.32. In short, he hasn’t been nearly as good as Jeurys Familia haters would like you to believe. He’s not the only one though, as Anthony Swarzak, one of the Mets’ rare big offseason signings, has a 6.46 ERA and 1.89 WHIP in 15.1 innings. Swarzak’s been truly awful this year, and the kicker here is he’s under team control for another season.

Gsellman and Swarzak aren’t the only two Met relievers to struggle this season (Jerry Blevins, Familia, Paul Sewald and Hansel Robles all come to mind), but their performance relative to the high expectations has been disappointing.

THE UGLY

Mickey Callaway was asked about Dominic Smith prior to Saturday’s game and had this to say on the former top prospect: “If we were just going day to day, I think Dom is probably best served off the bench.” We can debate about whether the hype with Smith was warranted or not, but there’s no denying the Mets haven’t given him a fair shake at first base. First, they brought in Adrian Gonzalez this past offseason to be the strong side of a platoon with Wilmer Flores. After a couple months of subpar production, they finally parted ways with him in June, effectively clearing the way for Smith to come up and play. Except Callaway and co. handed the starting job to Flores, opting to leave Smith on the bench.

It may be an effort to enhance Flores’ trade value but seriously, who are we kidding? Front offices in this day and age are far too smart to heavily buy into a hot streak from a 26-year-old first baseman with a career OBP of .300. The Mets are 15.5 games out of first, if this isn’t the time to find out what they have in Smith, when exactly is?

The Mets have given Smith just 25 at-bats in their past 10 games and don’t appear keen on getting him into the everyday lineup. This is what lost seasons are for – finding out who’s worth keeping around and who isn’t – so it’d be nice to see Smith getting consistent playing time for the rest of the year.

Photo credit: Wendell Cruz – USA Today Sports

Some of us are still watching these games, for whatever reason. Maybe we enjoy being frustrated on some level. Maybe we’re just too damn hot from the heat wave. Regardless of the reason, we didn’t even get the usual enjoyment of GKR, with Gary Apple and Ron taking over the broadcasting while the real Gary, Keith and Steve Gelbs all take a vacation.

With our commentary on the zeitgeist of being a Met fan out of the way, the pitching matchup; Marco Estrada for the Blue Jays and Zack Wheeler for the Mets. Both have heard their names come up in trade rumors, and it’s not impossible that any start for Wheeler might be his last in a Mets uniform. That offered a nice secondary plot point for Game 1 of the Jose Bautista revenge series.

Game recap

In an unfortunate turn, Estrada faced only three Mets before departing with an injury. He struck out Brandon Nimmo, then walked Bautista and allowed a home run to Asdrubal Cabrera, all while showing a significant velocity drop and a total lack of control. Jake Petricka replaced him and gave up another two-run home run in the second, this time to Devin Mesoraco. The Mets had a very quick 4-0 lead.

Wilmer Flores added another run with a solo shot in the fourth, extending his hitting streak to 10 games, but Wheeler was the real highlight at this point. Wheeler was perfect through three, before allowing a walk to old friend Curtis Granderson leading off the fourth. Teoscar Hernandez followed with a single but was thrown out at second, and Wheeler worked through the traffic on the basepaths to hold the Blue Jays off the board. Wheeler looked great, consistently living in the upper-90s and snapping off sharp breaking balls seemingly at ease.

Wheeler finally faltered in the eighth, when Granderson struck again with an RBI double after a walk and a hit by pitch. He bounced back with an eight pitch sixth, and the Mets picked him up with another run in the top of the seventh, when Michael Conforto drove in Nimmo (who had walked) with a double to stretch the Met lead to 6-1.

Mesoraco had to depart after being hit on a follow through, and maybe that’s where everything went wrong. More likely, it’s simply because the Mets bullpen is terrible. Wheeler struck out the first man he faced in the seventh before allowing a single to Randal Grichuk that Bautista botched into a triple. That was the end of Wheeler’s night, who was replaced by Anthony Swarzak. And here we go.

Swarzak got the first out, a ground ball from Lourdes Gurriel that scored Grichuk from third. He then walked Devon Travis, allowed a double to Granderson, threw a wild pitch that scored Travis, walked Teoscar Hernandez and got pulled from the game. Robert Gsellman replaced him and left a changeup too far out over the middle of the plate that Yangervis Solarte deposited in right field for a game-tying home run.

Tim Peterson allowed another two-run home run in the eighth, and the Mets couldn’t get anything done after putting two men on in the ninth. Bautista got on base four times and Wheeler was great, but the bullpen implosion blew a 5-0 lead and robbed Wheeler of a well-deserved win. He now has no wins since April 29, and the Mets are now 33-49 on the season.

Thoughts from the Game

It doesn’t need to be said, but GKR – particularly the first two – are a blessing from the baseball gods. Mets teams over the past decade-and-a-half have been mostly terrible but watching with excellent broadcasters makes things at least somewhat enjoyable. Put Gary Apple in the booth instead and we go from figuratively no reason to watch to literally no reason to watch.

As for the team itself, there are no new thoughts. The front office neglected to build a real bullpen and it’s consistently blown up in their face this season. Turns out when you sign a pop-up reliever who has one year of being good and 10 years of being terrible on his resume, you’re not going to improve your pitching staff very much. Shocking, that.

Other Mets News

Not much else to report here. Tim Tebow got hit in the head by a fly ball that turned into a triple in the Eastern League All-Star Game, which was sort of fun. Other than that, same old, same old.

Photo credit: Nick Turchiaro – USA Today Sports

And that fits pefectly with the feeling around the Mets right now. There’s nothing left to say, and I’ve given up. At some point, you just run out of words. An explanation is not necessary. Analysis is not necessary. Words are not necessary. There’s truly just nothing left to say. And you definitely can’t say the result of last night’s game is surprising, that’s for sure. You can’t say a game that had good starting pitching, limited offense and a complete bullpen meltdown is unique for the 2018 Mets. Every game follows the same blueprint these days. You can only write and/or read so many recaps of the same game again and again.

This team is seriously bad. That’s it. There’s truly nothing else that needs to be said. There’s no point laboring it anymore. We might not know exactly how they got to this point, but it doesn’t matter anymore; they’re just not good. They’re one of the worst teams in baseball. And there’s absolutely no sign this precipitous fall won’t continue for three more months.

Last night, Zack Wheeler pitched a hell of a game, tossing seven shutout innings with seven punchouts. He allowed one walk and five hits. On the whole, he’s pitched like a perfectly fine mid-rotation stater for a month. His only bad start this month was a start in Atlanta, where he had taken a 2-1 lead into the sixth inning, but three of his runners scoring on an Ozzie Albies grand slam given up by Paul Sewald messed up his line.

Basically, the Mets have been getting good-to-great starting pitching from four of five spots in the rotation for about a month now, and they’ve only won four games in the month of June. It’s truly incredible.

Of course, Wheeler left the game with a 3-0 lead. The Pirates pushed a run across in the eighth off the overworked and suddenly-bad Robert Gsellman, but suddenly-good Tim Peterson came in to get out of the inning and hold the lead at 3-1. But then, instead of keeping Peterson, who had only thrown nine pitches, in the game for the ninth, Mickey Callaway turned to his closer Jeurys Familia — who threw 28 pitches in 1.2 innings on Tuesday night — for the save.

Familia did not record an out. Three straight singles and a walk to his first four hitters chased the closer from the game before he had even blown the lead. Anthony Swarzak came in with the bases loaded and nobody out, trying to protect what was now a 3-2 lead. He promptly gave up a two-run single to David Freese on his first pitch, and the game was pretty much over from there. The Pirates took a 4-3 lead and didn’t look back. They added one more in the inning, and the Mets predictably went down punchless in the ninth, sending the Pirates home with a 5-3 win.

The Mets have not won a series since May 18-20. There are no words.

WHAT’S NEXT:

Unfortunately not the apocalypse, though the Mets will go to Miami to battle the Marlins tomorrow, which sounds just as close to the end of the world as we’re going to get. Jacob deGrom squares off with Sandy Alcantara, who will be making his big-league debut, at 7:10 p.m.

Photo credit: Brad Penner – USA Today Sports