New York Mets: The best and worst players in June 2019

The New York Mets would like to put June 2019 in the past. Even with bad results, several players performed well. We look at the best and worst performers from last month.

June is finally over for the New York Mets. They finished the month with a disappointing record of 10-18.

To finish off this disastrous month, they did more than go on a losing streak. They went on a losing week. From Sunday 6/23 through Saturday June 29, the Metropolitans of New York took one on the chin. They did it in a familiar fashion almost every night with the bullpen serving up a blown save along the way or at least letting the game get out of hand.

Not everything about June was an unmitigated disaster. Amazingly, some players performed well. The home run bats were rocking even when Mets relievers weren’t on the field. The offense wasn’t an issue in any way we hadn’t seen in the first two months.

Best Performers

Jeff McNeil led the Mets with a .373 batting average. The accomplishment raised his season batting average up to .348. In case you missed it, this is better than everyone else in Major League Baseball with enough at-bats to qualify for the batting title.

To nobody’s surprise, Pete Alonso was the team leader in home runs with 9 dingers in June. In doing so, he set the franchise’s rookie record. It wasn’t all dongs for Alonso either. He also hit .307 and finished second to only Todd Frazier in RBI with 21.

Also worth noting is how part-timers J.D. Davis, Tomas Nido, and Dominic Smith all did. Davie slashed .328/.381/.500 for the month in his 58 at-bats. As the backup catcher, Nido had only 40 at-bats in the month but managed to slash .275/.310/.350 and add another home run. Smith also continued his productive year at the plate with a .297/.366/.641 batting line. Maybe most surprising of all is his home run surge with included 6 four-base hits.

As far as pitching goes, the starters weren’t bad. Despite going 1-2, Jacob deGrom pitched to a 2.70 ERA in his six starts. Jason Vargas managed to go 2-0 with the same exact ERA.

From the bullpen, Chris Flexen was pitching well until his final appearance. He did still finish the month with a 3.68 ERA which by this bullpen’s standards isn’t so bad. Wilmer Font’s 13 innings pitched included a 2.77 ERA and 13 strikeouts.

Worst Performers

The Mets bats were pretty alive throughout the month. However, there were several key players who underperformed.

Robinson Cano continued to limp through his first season with the Mets. His June numbers include a .226/.281/.358 batting line. The veteran second baseman also grounded into a team-leading 6 double plays.

To a lesser extent yet still notable, Michael Conforto also had a rough month, too. He slashed .229/.303/.429. In very “all or nothing” fashion, Conforto smacked 6 home runs, but also struck out 27 times. No other player on the Mets saw strike three called on him more.

Finally, the center field combination of Carlos Gomez and Juan Lagares continued to drag this offense down. The recently designated for assignment Gomez slashed .170/.231/.298 for the month in 47 at-bats. Lagares was even worse with a .162/.225/.216 batting line.

Now for the real ugliness. The Mets bullpen. In spite of four blown saves, Seth Lugo still had one of the better reliever ERAs at 4.85. Just about everyone else was worse.

These numbers include ERAs above 10.00 from seven different relievers. Edwin Diaz’s 8.38 ERA barely fell below an average of a run per frame. Nevertheless, it was a rough month for the closer.

Among the starters, only Steven Matz got roughed up badly—not including Walker Lockett’s spot starts. Matz finished the month 1-3 with 7.36 ERA.

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June may have sentenced the 2019 Mets to death. Although the slump wasn’t spread team-wide, far too many pieces they were counting on underperformed and led to the month we all wish this franchise could skip over.