The Mets dropped the rubber game of their three-game series to the Marlins 7-3 at Marlins Park in Miami on Wednesday. Here are my takeaways from Wednesday night’s loss…
Poor middle infield defense, again.
Due to another routine double play not turned in the first inning, the stage was set with a runner on and two outs for Giancarlo Stanton, who hit one an absolute mile. Wilmer Flores was just too slow to start the double play, and that translated into two runs which probably should’ve never gone on the board for Miami.
It’s yet another example of the Mets poor middle infield defense plaguing them, costing them runs, and costing them games. It’s just not acceptable, and simply cannot happen if the Mets are going to survive the season. At some point, something will just have to give, one way or another.
Unlucky offense early, and no answer for the Miami bullpen.
The Mets really hit a lot of balls hard against Mat Latos early in this game, but quality outfield defense plus the cavernous confines of Marlins Park stole a lot of extra-base hits from the Mets tonight. It’s unfortunate because they had a good approach and squared up nicely against Latos, but came up empty. It happens.
The stink of it is, the Marlins had so many bleeders on infield hits and bouncing balls for extra-bases. They just had better luck tonight with the bats, and took advantage of their breaks…
Still, the Mets offense did absolutely nothing against the Miami bullpen, and that was not attributed to bad luck. They had three base runners after the fourth inning – it’s hard to score when people don’t get on base.
A disappointing series, a disappointing road trip.
The Mets had a bad road trip mostly because of poor defense overall, an inability to hit with runners in scoring position, some lackluster base running, and some weird decisions from the bench.
Sure, tonight’s loss could be attributed to some bad luck, but they beat themselves early in this one and lost the momentum as a result. It was a recurring theme on this road trip, and that’s the most frustrating part of it.
They were outplayed in Miami this week, something which had yet to happen for the most part over the first three weeks of the season.
This is not exactly the way to follow up an 11-game winning streak. The good news is, they’re going home, where they’re literally flawless…
Other notes from Wednesday night:
Michael Cuddyer snapped his 2-for-28 skid with a two-run home run in the first inning – he went 2-for-4 on the night.
Kevin Plawecki snapped his 0-for-9 skid with two hits in four at-bats.
Flores committed his fifth error of the season in the fourth inning.
Just Mets 