The New York Mets won Sunday night’s game against the Philadelphia Phillies 3-2, thanks to a Jeff McNeil home run that broke a 2-2 tie.
However, last week was not good at all for the Mets: before Sunday’s victory, they had lost five straight games.
The Atlanta Braves, owners of the top spot in the National League East division, keep getting further and further away from the Mets.
That’s not because the Mets have played extremely well as of late: they have a 4-6 record in their last 10 games.
The Mets Continue To Lose Ground
However, the Mets are 3-7 over that exact timeframe: the reality is that New York isn’t doing itself any favors with its recent performance.
Over their last 11 contests, they are 3-8, and are currently 5.5 games out of the first place in the East.
The second Wild Card berth, which remains a distant possibility, is actually harder than the division at this point.
The 79-69 St. Louis Cardinals are seven games better than the 73-77 Mets: a significant advantage considering there are two weeks left to play in the regular season.
Additionally, before catching the Cardinals, the Mets would need to surpass the San Diego Padres, Philadelphia Phillies, and Cincinnati Reds.
In other words, the Mets are officially sliding too far down the standings and, after comfortably leading the NL East for several months earlier in the season, are a longshot to play in October.
After a mediocre April in which they went 9-11, the Mets looked much better in May, finishing that month with a 17-9 record.
A 15-15 June was enough to keep the first position in a mediocre division, but things really started going south in July (14-13) and hit rock bottom in August, their worst month of the season at 10-19.
By August, they were no longer leaders in the division.
The trend of lousy play has continued into September, as they are 8-10 in the current month.
Braves lost again – they're 8-14 since Aug 23, making Mets' collapse all the more glaring. Their play the last couple of weeks has merely cemented the need for major changes top to bottom. Can't make the mistake of believing this offense will bounce back as currently constructed.
— John Harper (@NYNJHarper) September 19, 2021
No More Excuses
While it’s true that the Mets, at one point, suffered an unprecedented string of injuries, nearly every team has had to deal with a similar problem.
The season started going down the toilet in July, when they lost ace Jacob deGrom (July 7) to an elbow injury, and July 16, when shortstop Francisco Lindor went down with an oblique strain.
Truth be told, the Mets’ pitching has been good, thanks to hurlers like Marcus Stroman, Taijuan Walker (especially in the first half), Tylor Megill, Aaron Loup, Seth Lugo, and especially deGrom (1.08 ERA).
The Mets have allowed the sixth-fewest runs per game, at 4.1, and have the eighth-best ERA in MLB with 3.84.
However, the offense has been monumentally bad, and hasn’t looked especially good in virtually any stretch of the season.
Taijuan Walker pitched a good game, really making only one mistake over six innings.
However, the #Mets offense did what it usually does and couldn’t shake an inefficient Zack Wheeler tonight. It’s more of the same, which is a boring conversation at this point in the year.
— Michael Baron (@michaelgbaron) September 18, 2021
The Mets are 27th in MLB in runs scored per game, with 3.9, 19th in batting average (.239), and 25th in slugging percentage.
It’s inconceivable that a unit boasting Pete Alonso, McNeil, Dominic Smith, Michael Conforto, Brandon Nimmo, J.D. Davis, Lindor, Javier Baez, and others would be so bad.
Mathematically, the Mets still have a remote chance of getting to the postseason.
However, at this point it’s not realistic to expect them to do so.
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