Imagine falling a game under .500 on the first day of June, in a season where you got off to an 11-1 start.
Take it a step further. Imagine being 6 games behind a team that is rebuilding on June 1st?
The Mets dropped their second straight game last night to the Chicago Cubs, 7-4. Guess what? The Mets had another lead that the bullpen gave away.
Mets Bullpen: Over its last nine games, is 1-7 with a 8.42 ERA (34 earned runs/36.1 innings). 34 runs in 36 innings?!
Last night the pen spoiled a brilliant Zack Wheeler start. Wheeler kept the Cubs scoreless for the first six innings,and was sent back out to pitch the seventh. The Mets were leading 2-0 at the time, courtesy of a Brandon Nimmo 2 run homerun in the 3rd inning.
Addison Russell led off with a single. Tommy LaStella entered the game as a pinch hitter. The Cubs called for a hit and run and executed to perfection, putting runners at first and third with no outs. That was the end of the night for Wheeler. Enter Paul Sewald.
Kyle Schwarber got the Cubs on the board immediately on a sacrifice fly which scored Russell. Michael Conforto missed the cutoff man, which allowed LaStella to advance to second. More on that in a minute. Much more.
Red-hot Ben Zobrist was next and hit a double which scored LaStella. 2-2. Just like that, the game was tied and Zack Wheeler’s fantastic start was washed away. Kris Bryant followed with a single, and just like that the lead was gone. 3-2 Chicago. Unbelievable.
Now for some reason, Callaway saw something no one else did and decided to have Sewald pitch a second inning. In order to do that, he needed to double switch Luis Guillorme out of the game. Enter Jose Reyes.
Now, all the advanced stats and metrics that Callaway supposedly swears by will tell you that Reyes has no business playing third base. If you remember, that whole situation led Asdrubal Cabrera to demand a trade last year. Advanced stats aside, anyone can see that Reyes is uncomfortable at third. The other day when Callaway called the infield in, Reyes stayed even with the bag because he’s so uncomfortable there!
So Sewald came out for his second inning of work and gave up a leadoff single to Albert Almora Jr. Sewald then struck out Ian Happ and Addison Russell. Wilson Contreras was next, and he hit a ball to third that Luis Guillorme handles in his sleep to end the inning. Jose Reyes let it get past him for a base hit.
Kyle Schwarber was next and he hit a 3 run homerun. Of course. 6-2 Cubs.
That was huge because the Mets scored 2 runs the next inning on an Adrian Gonzalez base hit which scored 2 runs. 6-4.
Ian Happ drove in the Cubs’ 7th and final run in the 9th of Jeurys Familia. Oh yeah. Jose Reyes made an error too.
The bullpen is absolutely atrocious. What else can you say? Well, a lot.
The Mets had only 3 relievers available last night. The Mets designated PJ Conlon for assignment. That made room on the roster for Scott Copeland. They designated Copeland after one appearance on to bring back Jose Lobaton. Yeah, Jose Lobatòn. The guy they designated for assignment like ten days ago. You can’t make this up.
After the game, Mickey Callaway harped on Michael Conforto missing the cutoff man. Granted, he just used it as an example of the Mets not playing crisp baseball. But, come on skip. You double switched Reyes in the game to keep Sewald out there for a second inning. Conforto made a mistake, and to his credit, held himself very accountable.
Well, the Mets are under .500 for the first time this season. They send Jacob deGrom to the mound tomorrow against Mike Montgomery.
