Was it David Robertson‘s fault, or just his turn?
The Mets normally reliable post-World Baseball Classic Plan B closer was called upon to protect a 4-2 lead in the eighth against the Giants and started by striking out old friend Wilmer Flores, who’d homered earlier. (With Wilmer, J.D. Davis and a hamstrung Michael Conforto on the roster, the Giants have become something of a Mets tribute band, playing hits from years when you actually liked the team.) Joc Pederson hit a grounder to first which Pete Alonso — so frustrated it’s a surprise when he doesn’t snap a bat over some portion of his anatomy — misplayed for an error. Peterson walked the aforementioned Davis to bring up Patrick Bailey, whom you’re forgiven if you’ve never heard of before, seeing how he started this season as a Richmond Flying Squirrel.
Bailey found one heck of a nut, driving a Robertson curveball over the center-field fence for a 5-4 Giant lead. A lead the Giants held, with insult added to injury in the ninth as Bailey made a perfect throw to gun down pinch-runner Starling Marte on a steal attempt about a nanosecond before Brandon Nimmo struck out to end the game.
Important note: You just read Bailey’s name multiple times. The temptation is always to attribute a loss to some moral deficiency, but sometimes it would be simpler to say the other guys won. I will now climb down off this soapbox and complain some more.
It’s all bad. It’s all so so bad.
The loss marked the end of a 7-19 June in which the Mets played eight one-run games and lost seven of them, surrendered 14 1/2 games in the NL East and 10 in the wild card, and went from contenders about whom we grumbled to dead men walking about whom we’d prefer not to think at all. (I cribbed those stats from the Athletic, which explores if what just ended was the worst month in franchise history.)
Some of these Mets will be elsewhere when this month ends, with Tommy Pham leading the list of those likely to have their sentences commuted. Maybe Robertson will join him, so long as further performances like Friday night’s don’t reduce the return on him from “Double-A lottery ticket” to “already opened bag of sunflower seeds.” Mark Canha, Marte and Brooks Raley could have new homes, one supposes. Perhaps someone will take a flyer on Max Scherzer and/or Justin Verlander, preferably someone with a time machine and/or a stack of Get Out of Stupid Pitch Clock Free cards.
We’ll see, and by then we’ll know what other horrors this star-crossed team has had inflicted on it and in turn passed on to us. Can’t wait!
During these times of hardship and great disappointment with the 2023 New York Mets, I miss former New York Mets president Sandy Alderson’s sage, droll and unfailingly reassuring words to help us all cope with the angst and uncertainty that goes with being a Mets fan.
This was supposedly one of Carrasco’s better outings of the season.
5 innings, 92 pitches.
If you can’t go 6, I don’t want to hear about it.
Doesn’t matter what the mid-inning score is, if the Mets are going to ask for 4 or more innings from their bullpen, it’s a loss.
Mets are .405 in June games dating back to 2013.
As Declan Patrick MacManus sang: But it just seems to be his turn!
We should all know better than to believe everything we see on Twitter, and I did not seek confirmation from any other sources, yet I believe it; the Oakland A’s, in their pursuit of not only a new home but also the 62 Mets record for futility, and in front of crowds that would likely disappoint the New Jersey Jackals, had a better record in June than your 2023 New York Mets.
If only Eppler and his analytical geniuses kept Bassitt and Walker and got rid of Cookie and didn’t bring on Quintana we would be a lot better off. Of course, the bullpen, filled with retreads and Syracuse never will- bes, would still be a disaster.
Like a plane in a nose dive, at some point it’s too late to pull up. The constant defeats have created a toxic environment of losing that begets more losing — I am sure that any one of our guys will thrive when shipped to another team, another city, another coaching staff. It’s too late for these Mets.
Past denial now, past the anger – tried bargaining but it didn’t stick, so now I’ve reached the sadness stage.
Sad to watch and sad to know that it’s only July 1st and the season is already in shambles.
Sad to know that we will need a thorough clubhouse cleaning as well as a dugout and front office reno come autumn, if not sooner.
There has always been a keen sense of foreboding for the long-time Met fans perhaps akin to the uneasiness that one form the hood may feel once one finally moves on up to that dee-luxe apartment in the sky. It’s just too good to be true and besides that you miss the old neighborhood and Bertha. So sadly we pack our things and head back out towards acceptance.
On to 2024.
Simply put, all we need to do is pass the Marlins and the Phillies to finish 2nd in the NL East, and that will give us the 3rd WC behind LA and SF. The others ahead of us will just drop off naturally.
We are currently behind Miami by 11.5 games, and these 2 teams are no great shakes. It certainly can be done if we play up to our potential.
And what better time to start, on July 1st, with Verlander on the mound.
“Mets tribute band,” I like it! That almost makes it worth this wasteland…
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