On Friday night, the Mets lost their fifth consecutive game, a 7-0 drubbing to the Brewers.
Meanwhile, the Nationals defeated the Padres at Petco Park late Friday night, pulling within 1/2 game of the Mets.
Washington has gained 7 1/2 games on the Mets in the last 17 days.
That sounds familiar.
Despite the Mets lead in the division shrinking and the team’s deep struggles over their last five games, Sandy Alderson told reporters before Friday’s loss to Milwaukee everyone should remain calm as the club deals with the skid.
“I think everybody needs to take a deep breath. Before we started that series, we were nine games over .500,” Alderson explained. “We lost four games, three by one run. It’s easy to identify one play or one at-bat or one pitch as a defining moment in each of those games, but the fact is, we need to swing the bats a little better and keep in perspective what happened.”
Four games is a small sample, and this time of year the standings can be very volatile. They’re also dealing with an unprecedented number of injuries for this time of year – there are 11 players on the disabled list right now after Dilson Herrera got hurt yesterday.
However, there is no denying what has become a disturbing trend recently. The situation at shortstop is understood at this point, but the bad base running, the inability to get bunts down (that’s not just on the pitchers, either), the poor defense, the poor approaches and execution at the plate have all been a problem for the better part of a month now. All of it has just come to a head in the last five games.
Alderson is confident despite the fragmented roster, the team will begin to hit soon.
“We’ve got plenty of potential in our lineup to score runs,” he explained. “We haven’t been doing it recently, but like every thing else in baseball, it will turn, The current question is, when? And I don’t have that answer.”
When needs to be soon, based on what’s on display at the present time.
Over the team’s last 20 games, during which the club is 7-13, the Mets are hitting .220/.269/.343. They have scored 57 runs, hit 30 doubles, one triple, 16 home runs, and have recorded 38 walks and 161 strikeouts in that span.
Just Mets 