New York Mets offense trades places with their early pitching performance

The New York Mets offense barely showed up in their series against the Milwaukee Brewers as if half the team disappeared into dust.

This past weekend was a rough one for the New York Mets. A trip to face the Milwaukee Brewers meant taking on some serious competition. Coming off a shutout led by Noah Syndergaard and his solo shot in their 1-0 victory on Thursday at home, the Mets were hopeful to carry some momentum with them on the road.

Things didn’t turn out the way we wanted. In fact, it feels a lot worse than it actually is. It’s almost as if Thanos captured all of the Infinity Stones again and wiped out half this team with the snap of his fingers.

Though the final score suggests they were competitive in each of the three games, it felt like the Mets got beat up real bad. Sure, they didn’t lose by more than two runs. The lack of fight made it seem as if they were buried early on.

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The pitching continued to perform well, allowing only 10 runs in the three games. In a change of events from the first month of the season, it was the offense which caused the sweep.

Mets pitching has done well over the last week. This includes the starters and taxed relief corps. Even unusual suspects such as Jason Vargas, Ryan O’Rourke, and Tyler Bashlor have gotten their outs. The Mets are finally in a position to win low-scoring games except they can’t because the bats have gone nearly silent.

What’s more, the Mets are losing games because of their struggling defense. Amed Rosario is the main culprit. With 9 errors on the year and other poor defensive metrics, the question has been whether or not he needs some time in Triple-A to work on things. As many have noted, the Mets cannot afford to allow players like Rosario to figure things out on the fly.

He’s not the only one struggling either. As a team, the Mets own the worst fielding percentage in the National League. Just as one more note of their struggles while on defense, they have also allowed more stolen bases than anyone else in the league.

Rosario has, however, performed well at the plate. He had another three hits in Sunday’s 3-2 loss. The same cannot be said for outfielder Brandon Nimmo. The sparkplug of 2018 is now below the Mendoza Line and striking out at a horrific rate. Unlike Pete Alonso, who is also fanning a ton, Nimmo isn’t contributing to the few runs the team has been able to muster up.

For what it’s worth, the Mets now have only two players batting .300. At this point in the season, it’s not uncommon to have multiple men still above this mark. One of those guys is pitcher Chris Flexen. The other two are Jeff McNeil and current minor leaguer, Dominic Smith.

The 2019 season is beginning to look a lot less like Christmas and a whole lot more like the 2018 squad. They’re unable to score runs in bunches, instead scratching away at any scoring they can do. The pitching has come together but the offense has gone virtually empty.

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We saw it plenty last year. Your pitching can only do so much. Without a crooked number in your row on the scoreboard, it’s impossible to win.