Just Mets

The Mets lost to the Braves by the score of 2-1 at Turner Field on Friday night. Here is my takeaway from the loss…

That eighth inning was an utter embarrassment.

Jacob deGrom was magnificent on Friday night, and truly deserved a win. He didn’t fan a lot of hitters, but he did such a great job pitching in and jamming the Braves on both sides of the plate. His slider and change-up were extra impressive tonight as both seemed to fall off the table with regularity from start to finish.

But it wouldn’t be a Mets game without some poor defense. He was forced to throw some extra pitches in the fourth inning after Curtis Granderson inexplicably dropped a fly ball. Then in the eighth inning after Andrelton Simmons drove a leadoff double, Ruben Tejada vacated third on a bunt play which gave deGrom no shot to throw Simmons out.

Tejada gets at least a little benefit of the doubt because he is not a third baseman, being asked to learn on the fly in very big situations, like tonight. Still, it’s yet another fundamental blunder by a Met infielder, and they continue to kill the club brutally.

It got worse when Pedro Ciriaco bounced a grounder to Wilmer Flores, who for some reason double clutched and was unable to throw Ciriaco out at first.

That ended deGrom’s night, and the Mets night for that matter as Jace Peterson doubled two runs in off of Sean Gilmartin, and that was that.

Why Terry Collins pulled deGrom after Ciriaco reached is beyond me. He was by far the best pitcher to get the club out of this mess, even with 97 pitches under his belt and an extra day of rest coming. Then, I couldn’t figure out why he put Jeurys Familia in with the bases loaded and two outs in the eighth, although that’s pretty representative of the state of the Mets bullpen. But, it looked like Familia hurt his left hamstring in his unnecessary outing, which makes it totally worthless…

It might not have mattered anyway, because there is no dodging giving a team two extra outs in an inning. It has happened way too often this week and this year for that matter. It’s completely unacceptable and beyond maddening at this point. I feel for the pitching staff, because they’ve pitched their hearts out on countless occasions this year only to be burned by a completely inept defense behind them.

If this club wants to be playing in October, they’re going to have to find better defensive players. There is nobody hitting well enough on this team to justify how poorly some are playing with the glove. And, it’s not just the physical mistakes – it’s the mental mistakes too.

The Mets didn’t score again.

The Mets have now scored two runs in 27 innings on this road trip, and two runs in their last 33 innings dating back to the third inning on Tuesday. There’s just no life to the bats right now. Couple that with their poor defense, and that explains these three consecutive losses.

1-9, the offense looks completely lost. It doesn’t matter who Collins has in there and how he configures the lineup. The thing is, with the defense so bad at this point, the starting pitchers truly cannot pitch well enough to support even a single run put up, as was the case on Friday night.

Other notes from Friday:

With their six hits on Friday, the Mets are now 15-for-93 at the plate over their last three games.

DeGrom has allowed two earned runs or less in 11 of his 14 starts this season.

Simmons is now 15-for-35 with four runs scored and six RBI against the Mets this season.

The Mets are 10-22 on the road and have lost 14 of their last 17 games away from Citi Field.