After two taut wins in LA and San Francisco, it was back to the old boring formula familiar from too many Met losses. And maybe it’s just the late-night abyss that follows a West Coast loss, but your chronicler is left scratching his bald head about what to say.
I mean, yeah, Bartolo Colon [1] didn’t help himself in the field. But he pitched well enough, getting pecked to death with bloops and soft singles instead of cudgeled by extra-base hits and dingers.
Sure, Daniel Murphy [2] did something mildly lunkheaded afield, but that’s not exactly a shocking development.
Anyway, those weren’t the things that beat the Mets [3].
What beat the Mets was (wait for it) the utter lack of offense. You’ve heard it all before, but score, say, four runs a game and nobody’s sighing about an average start by Colon or blemishes in the field. But the Mets don’t score four runs a game. Since June 15 they’ve scored 2.2 runs a game, so sayeth SNY. During that time they’re hitting .197, and since June 1 Lucas Duda [4] has actually achieved a negative batting average — his home run and RBI totals are being revised downwards each week due to his utter ineptitude at the plate.
OK, that last part’s not true. But cripes, it sure feels like it could be.
Injuries. Age, whether it’s an excess or a lack. Payroll considerations. Lack of depth. Complementary players forced into primary roles. None of this is the murder weapon; rather, they’re all contributing factors.
And it’s an old, not particularly interesting script that gets trotted out too often around here.
(Deep sigh, look around, gather strength.)
Fortunately, there’s another game tomorrow afternoon. Let’s agree to look ahead to that one and not back at this one, all right? That’s one of the great healing balms of baseball, after all — tomorrow’s game. Which this time around has the good grace to show up even sooner.
And if that same horrid script comes out again tomorrow, well, we tried.