Laura Albanese: Mets wrap up long road trip with more questions than answers
Starting pitcher Huascar Brazobán of the New York Mets reacts after being removed during the second inning of the game against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field on Sunday in Phoenix. Credit: Getty Images/Christian Petersen
PHOENIX — No one is coming to save these Mets.
Francisco Lindor isn’t returning anytime soon. Luis Robert Jr. isn’t going to swoop in from the injured list and carry this team. When Carlos Mendoza was asked about Jorge Polanco, he said the infielder has had “some good days, some other days when he’s not as good” — the sort of verbiage you use for the chronically ill, not an athlete dealing with bursitis.
It all paints a clear picture: The Mets are going to have to figure this out with the pieces they have at their disposal.
Despite a mostly OK road trip — Sunday’s 5-1 loss to the Diamondbacks at Chase Field gave them a 5-4 record during their western sojourn after a 5-2 start — you can bet the long flight back to Flushing wasn’t particularly celebratory.
“It was tough to lose today,” said Juan Soto, who went 0-for-3 with a walk. “We’re all professionals. We all can handle this stuff, but definitely [we’re] struggling a little bit right now, but I think it’s going to pass.”
It’s getting hard to see that vision, though. Save for one really good day in Denver, their bats remained limp, generally carried by one strong inning in the games in which they actually managed to score a few runs. Add to that, not one of their opponents had a winning record.
The Mets (15-25, including an 8-9 record since their 12-game losing streak) collected only four hits Sunday as Arizona starter Eduardo Rodriguez flirted with the first complete game of his career (he was pulled with one out in the ninth).
They squandered two very winnable games in Anaheim and Colorado and wasted yet another gem from Clay Holmes in Arizona.
Andy Ibanez — starting at third because he’s a career .275 hitter against lefties — appeared allergic to throwing the ball anywhere in Mark Vientos’ general vicinity, committing two costly errors. Bo Bichette strung together two nearly identical uncompetitive at-bats in the first and fourth. Even Soto is slumping. He went hitless in his last three games and was 4-for-33 on the road trip.
“I’ve just been missing balls,” he said. “I’ve been working with hitting coaches, swinging the bat, doing my routines, working on mechanics. We’re at the point where [I] just gotta stop missing it.”
You can pretty much count on Soto busting out soon enough, but it says a lot that one of the most judicious hitters in baseball is expanding the zone. Bichette has always been a free swinger, but a combination of bad luck and some questionable swing decisions have led to lowered production.
At this point (and despite his .207 average), it’s hard to justify platooning Brett Baty. Ibanez doesn’t look to be the answer, Baty has a secure glove at third, and consistent playing time could be the ticket to jump-starting his offense.
It’s not as if the Mets were facing behemoths. The first two games of this series marked the first time in five years that Diamondbacks starters posted back-to-back games of at least six innings, one or fewer runs and three or fewer hits. The executioners? Ryne Nelson (5.68 ERA) on Friday and Merrill Kelly (7.62 ERA) on Saturday.
“We didn’t make adjustments [when we needed to] and we swung at [Rodriguez’s] pitches when we needed to do damage,” Mendoza said.
And how exactly are they going to stop doing that?
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out, because we’ve been chasing a lot,” he said. “Especially when we’re ahead in counts, we’ve seen over and over the past few days. We get to 2-0, 3-1 and then we’re swinging at pitchers’ pitches as opposed to swinging at pitches [where we can] do damage. We’re not doing that offensively.”
There were a few meager positive notes Sunday. David Peterson continued to string together solid appearances and Sean Manaea’s fastball ticked up toward 93 mph. Vientos is seeing the ball incredibly well and again came close to homering — no small feat in an environment created by a closed roof that routinely knocked down potential homers the past two days.
It’s going to take all that and more for the Mets to build on an improved May start and erase the pains inflicted by the April from hell.
“Overall, we saw some good things on the road trip,” Peterson said. “We’re definitely not exactly where we want to be yet, but it’s not going to happen overnight . . . I’m confident in every single guy in this team. When you have that confidence, when you believe in the guy next to you, believe he’s going to go out there and do his job, it helps you go out there and do your job. So [we’re] just continuing to focus on working hard, picking each other up and being there for each other.”
There’s really no other option, is there? Barring unlikely early-season transactions, the Mets will have to survive with what they’ve got. There’s no elixir to instantly cure Lindor’s calf and no magic that will make Polanco and Robert any less injury-prone.
No, for them to have a shot, this hodgepodge team of mismatched parts has to do exactly what Peterson said, and it has to start now.
Laura Albanese is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. She's been covering MLB since 2014 after starting at Newsday as an intern seven years earlier.
