Just Mets

The Mets lost to the Brewers by the score of 3-2 tonight in Milwaukee, falling to .500 for the year. Here are my takeaways from Tuesday’s loss…

More of the same.

Poor defense was the story once again on Tuesday night for the Mets. Between Jon Niese not covering first on a ball hit to the right side, Dilson Herrera not catching a ball at second base on a stolen base attempt, Ruben Tejada not covering third base again on a bunt play, and Michael Cuddyer inexplicably letting a ball roll through his legs on a go-ahead, run scoring double by Adam Lind, it was a comedy of physical and mental mistakes which buried the Mets against arguably the worst team in baseball.

The worst part about all of this is it’s just getting worse, and every inning seems to magnify this problem more and more. And tonight, they made the worst team in baseball look light years better than them. Light years.

Of course, it shouldn’t be too unexpected when the left fielder is in right field, the right fielder is in left field, the third baseman is at shortstop, the shortstop is at third base, and they have an ill-prepared second baseman playing on an everyday basis.

But until something changes with the personnel, there’s no reason to expect the quality of play to improve, nor should it be expected the record will improve.

Jon Niese was really good.

He didn’t get off to a good start in the first inning, but he pitched really well for six innings in general. He was plagued by some poor defense, but it wouldn’t be a Jon Niese start without some bad defense behind him. But he did a nice job burying his cutter in towards the right-handed hitters and keeping his two-seamer on the in towards the left-handers. He did his job, that’s for sure. Unfortunately, between the lack of offense and indescribable defense, he is now winless in his last seven starts.

If that was Niese’s last start for the time being, he has sure done a nice job turning his ship around over the last three weeks. He has worked six innings or more in each of his last four starts and allowed three earned runs or less in each of those starts, compiling a 3.46 ERA and allowing only two home runs in 26 innings over that span. Perhaps he’s opened just enough eyes around the league to garner some outside interest, as well…

The state of the Mets.

This is a team playing not to lose right now. They’re so afraid to make mistakes, they look indecisive and confused seemingly in every situation. All of this combined with the unfathomable number of injuries have brought the Mets back to .500 for the first time since April 12, playing ten games under .500 over their last 56 games.

I’ll get into this more tomorrow, but they are what their record says they are – contenders don’t play ten games under .500 for a third of the schedule.

Other notes from Tuesday:

The Mets did not record a hit after the third inning.

Curtis Granderson went 1-for-3 with a home run and a walk – he is 4-for-10 with two home runs in his last three games.

Kevin Plawecki went 1-for-2 with a walk on Tuesday – he’s now 5-for-his-last-9 in his last five games.

With his 0-for-3 on Tuesday, Dilson Herrera is 0-for-his-last-14 at the plate.

The Mets fell to 10-25 on the road and 4-11 against the National League Central in 2015.

The Mets are 0-6 on their current eight-game road trip, having scored eight runs in those six games.