I left for paternity leave on May 14 when the New York Mets were 19-22 having lost four of their previous five games.
Surely, a roster featuring Pete Alonso, Francisco Lindor, Brandon Nimmo, JD Martinez, and Jeff McNeil would have found a way to stop the skid. Surely, David Stearns’ patchwork rotation and bullpen of analytical darlings could have stolen a handful of wins to keep the club flirting with .500.
Thursday is my first day back. My son was born on May 19; thankfully, he and his brilliant mother are doing well. While I was gone, the Mets went 3-11.
The lineup featuring one of the best shortstops in the game, baseball’s most prolific power hitter since 2019, and a former batting champion was limited to three or fewer runs seven times in the last 14 games.
Mets starters, which have improved in recent days, still had a 4.53 ERA during that stretch while the bullpen came undone. Edwin Diaz lost his closer job before getting placed on the 15-day IL with a shoulder impingement.
New York’s relievers managed to blow four games in which they held leads going into the seventh inning. Diaz allowed four runs in the bottom of the ninth on May 18 against the Miami Marlins before the Mets lost 10-9 in 10 innings.
On May 24 against the San Francisco Giants with a 6-2 lead, Reed Garrett gave up five in the eighth before Jorge Lopez yielded what became the game-winning home run to Mike Yastrzemski in the ninth.
That same Jorge Lopez heaped further embarrassment on the Mets when he threw his glove into the stands during Wednesday’s when he was ejected during an eighth inning when he and Adam Ottavino combined to give up six runs in a 10-3 Los Angeles Dodgers win.
The lines of communication were crossed after the game with English being Lopez’s second language, but the just of his postgame remarks consisted of little remorse and comments suggesting that he was the worst teammate on the worst team in baseball.
The veteran reliever will mercifully be shown the lifeboat off the sinking Mets’ ship as he will be designated for assignment. It is a fate that in one way or another should befall the majority of the 2024 roster as Stearns is being backed into a corner where he should part ways with everything that is not nailed to the floor before the trade deadline.
As is, the core of this franchise that was pieced together by different regimes is not going to cut it in Queens. Lindor’s albatross of a contract is immovable. So is Nimmo’s, but McNeil’s is. The former batting champ has a .229 average this season after his number dropped over 50 points from .326 in 2022 to .270 last year.
At 35 years old, Starling Marte’s deal which expires at the end of 2025 could pique the interest of a contending team searching for outfield depth.
That is all small stuff compared to the looming uncertainty of Alonso’s future in Queens. While no man in baseball has hit more home runs than the 29-year-old since he debuted five years ago, he is becoming a bat that resides on the polar opposite’s of the game’s offensive spectrum. Since the start of last season, Alonso is batting .221 with 198 strikeouts while nearly 34% (33.7%) of his hits coming via the longball.
His contract is up at the end of the season and he reportedly turned down a lengthy offer last summer. Stearns himself all but guaranteed during the offseason and spring that contract extension talks would not really heat up until this winter, but that is only if the slugger makes it that far.
Alonso is the exact kind of talent the Mets had starved for over the barren decades: A homegrown bat that is on the precipice of rewriting the franchise’s record books. The problem is, the team has not won with him in its ranks and Stearns has the understandably-appealing opportunity to deal him at the trade deadline and continue the influx of young talent that replenished the organization last summer when Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer were traded.
Such a move allows him to put his first dramatic imprint on what truly is his team while continuing his alignment with owner Steve Cohen’s philosophy of building long-term sustainability within the organization.
At the moment, it sure feels like that is the only way to go with the Mets already 16 games out of first place in the NL East and 11 games under .500 before the calendar flips to June.
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