Laura Albanese: With Juan Soto ill, Mets can't find a cure for their sickening offense
The Mets' Bo Bichette follows through on a single during the fifth inning of a game against the Miami Marlins on Sunday in Miami. Credit: AP/Lynne Sladky
MIAMI — When a person — in this case, Juan Soto — comes down with a fever, it means the immune system has identified an infection. White blood cells release chemicals into the bloodstream, which trigger the brain to raise the body’s internal temperature in an effort to chase it out.
The Mets could use Soto’s immune system right now. Because the infection is there, but they have no idea how to fight it.
Soto was held out of the lineup in their 4-0 loss to the Marlins on Sunday afternoon — an objectively lousy game decided by Heriberto Hernandez’s grand slam off Devin Williams with one out in the ninth (if you’re keeping track of the indignities, Hernandez is hitting .193). Soto had flu symptoms that apparently have been plaguing a few of the Mets the past few days, and though they don’t know if he’ll be available to play Monday, Carlos Mendoza said after the game that the bug is “like a 24-hour thing.”
You know what’s not a 24-hour thing? Whatever recurring parasite that keeps eating away at this offense.
Sure, losing Soto is huge, but that’s hardly an excuse for Sunday’s uncompetitive display — especially in light of another excellent pitching performance, this time courtesy of Christian Scott, who allowed four hits and two walks with five strikeouts in 5 2⁄3 shutout innings. Confoundingly, the righthander has yet to earn his first major-league win.
You can’t really pin this on Williams, either. Eventually someone was going to crack; that’s what happens when third base feels as foreign as an unclaimed planet (the crew of the Starship Enterprise this team is not).
Exactly one Met has reached third in the last 26 innings.
“We’re scuffling,” Mendoza said. “We’re having a hard time hitting the ball hard. There’s no slug . . . We’re having a hard time creating traffic, we’re having a hard time squaring the ball up. We’ve got to figure it out.”
But what exactly is happening?
“It’s a combination of a lot of things,” he said. “We’re late at times and that’s what makes us chase. It just comes down to we’re getting good pitches and we’re not squaring them up. We’ve got to get back to that.”
But of course, if they knew how to do that, they already would be doing it.
The Mets went 11-for-88 in the series, including nine singles, and scored two runs, one in the last 26 innings. They had three hits Friday, three hits Saturday and five hits Sunday against a team with a 4.18 ERA, ranked 18th in baseball. That left them with a .125/.250/.170 slash line and 29 strikeouts in the series.
In fairness, the first two days’ starting pitchers were on their games, but Sunday was a bullpen game in which the Marlins cycled through six relievers, and certainly not all of them were untouchable.
This has happened as the pitching has largely stepped up, even with Clay Holmes’ broken leg and the bullpen’s overuse in this stretch of 16 straight games.
Twice on Sunday, Mets pitchers — Scott with one out in the third and Brooks Raley with two outs in the seventh — squirreled their way out of bases-loaded jams. The Mets (22-31) responded with the offensive equivalent of a sad trombone, as if in a heated contest to determine which of these two teams is the true king of the NL East cellar. A double by Christopher Morel and a sacrifice bunt were followed by two walks in the ninth, and by the time Hernandez hit his 416-foot homer to centerfield against a drawn-in outfield, it felt like a small mercy to anyone out there watching on TV.
“We ran into some good pitching and we ourselves were not at our best,” said Marcus Semien, who went 0-for-4. “We were in position to win this game. We had a couple of chances, couldn’t come through with two outs.”
This one probably stings for a few reasons: 1. Because a season that felt out of reach in April and appeared on the brink of reclamation just last weekend now looks dead again. 2. Losing five of their last six against poor division opponents further underlines their pervasive struggles. 3. Because the Mets can’t really find the source of the infection.
That last one is too reminiscent of last season, when coaches, players and front-office officials all were openly puzzled about the team’s misadventures. What makes it downright bizarre is that most of those coaches are gone and half the team is, too — and yet the same song plays on.
Soto has basically been the entire offense for a few days now, and his absence Sunday again highlighted this team’s questionable depth. No one really knows when Francisco Lindor is coming back, and the non-updates on Luis Robert Jr.’s condition is reminiscent of the infamous Jed Lowrie era. Jorge Polanco has been with the team and has participated in baseball activities, but that return doesn’t seem imminent either.
But so what?
Even if these players return, there’s still something very wrong. On Saturday, the Mets repeatedly failed to swing at hittable fastballs, only to expand the zone later in the game. On Sunday, they struggled to grind out competitive at-bats. They have a .221 batting average against the slider (18th in baseball) and generally struggle with most breaking balls. They’re relying on kids to spark this offense, but that’s a big learning curve, especially when it comes to off-speed pitches.
And there isn’t an available solution, which in and of itself is a problem.
So no, the virus doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. But the heat is definitely on.
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.
