Just Mets

In a way, everything about the no-hitter put the Mets in their place, which is clearly separate than that of the Giants.

The Mets battered and beaten lineup took the ultimate hit on Tuesday night against the World Champion Giants. They were no-hit by a rookie named Chris Heston making just the 13th start of his young career.

The 5-0 loss to the Giants left the Mets just 18-25 since the conclusion of their 11-game winning streak in late April, during which the Mets have hit .237/.294/.373 with 112 extra-base hits and 355 strikeouts in those 43 games.

The no-hitter even left the manager completely stunned and mostly speechless by what happened to his team on Tuesday night in their home ballpark.

“I’ve never been no-hit before,” manager Terry Collins said as he tried to explain what happened to his club after Tuesday’s loss. “You figure someone’s going to get something.”

Well, they didn’t. And, they weren’t close to a hit the entire night. The Giants didn’t even have to play particularly well to help glue this masterpiece together.

They did anyway, because, well, they’re the Giants and they’re the World Champions.

Chris Heston utterly dominated the Mets in a way not typically seen even in the greatest of perfect games. The Mets weren’t even close from pitch one through pitch 110. They hit two balls in the air, only one of which into the outfield. The rest of the time they either struck out (six times looking) or rolled groundballs infielder after infielder.

His sinker was beautifully placed down and on what home plate umpire chose to define as the corners. But while Heston was helped by the liberal strike zone, Buster Posey certainly deserves a lot of credit as well for his pitch framing and strike stealing.

Michael Cuddyer acknowledged being on the wrong side of the no-hitter hurts.

“It’s a little deflating,” Cuddyer said. “Nobody wants to get no-hit. It doesn’t feel good.”

Cuddyer marveled at Heston’s sinker in particular on Tuesday night.

“He had a really good sinker,” Cuddyer explained. “He kept everybody off-balance with a couple of different kinds of breaking balls. … I think it was mainly his sinker. He had a lot of movement on his sinker. And he didn’t make any mistakes. When he made mistakes, it hit a person. …. Those were really the only mistakes he made all night.”

Cuddyer – who has really emerged as this team’s veteran leader in the absence of David Wright – does not intend to gather his teammates to talk about being no-hit.

“I don’t think we need to have a team meeting,” Cuddyer said. “We got no-hit. It happens. Your attitude coming in is still upbeat, excited to play tomorrow. And, hopefully everybody feeds off of that. That’s how we’re going to come in.”

He’s right. A loss like this needs to be taken in stride in that clubhouse. It does in fact happen, even to the best teams with the best offenses. Remember, the Mets were no-hit four days before they clinched the National League East and 26 days before they won the World Series in 1969. And, somehow, the 2015 Mets are still in first place, thanks in large measure to a Washington Nationals team proving to be more streaky than even minimally inconsistent.

Still, as fluky and mostly random as a no-hitter can be, it doesn’t make it any less maddening when your team is victimized by one of these games.

But that’s not really the worst of it.

The no-hitter emphatically defines the absolute ineffectiveness, emptiness, and immobility of the offense on this Mets roster, something which the Giants proved – outside of the no-hitter and aside from their stellar defense – is essential towards winning in this era of baseball.