Mets: 3 overreactions to a rough weekend trip to Tampa Bay
The New York Mets were elated to leave the Big Apple and head to Tampa Bay for three games against the Rays this weekend. They cutely dressed up like they were going to the beach.
Unfortunately, the winning streak they began in St. Louis and brought home to New York didn’t last long. The Mets lost a heartbreaker on Friday, a near-nail biter on Saturday that turned into a blowout, and finished with a woeful performance on Sunday. I literally went outside and did yard work I didn’t have to just to get away for a bit.
Every baseball season has its ups and downs. For the Mets, this past weekend had a lot of crawling around in the mud.
As we’ll occasionally do on Rising Apple, I want to overreact! I want to take this weekend series and turn it into the defining three games of the season. I want to be passionate and look at things through a smaller picture rather than the big one—that this is a 162 game season.
Luis Rojas might be the worst manager in Mets history
Do I really think Luis Rojas is worse than some of the other managers this franchise has employed? Logically, no. Of course not. He hasn’t been given the chance to show us what he can or cannot do.
Well, maybe the latter he has. His bullpen management was atrocious this weekend.
The biggest issue I had was not having a reliever ready to go in the eighth inning on Friday. Even with David Peterson cruising, you have to be aware of the situation. The Mets were up only 2-0. After a leadoff home run, he had to at least have a guy already warm and ready to go. Instead, Trevor May was delayed in preparing for his appearance.
I know a majority of Mets fans feel the same way about this and were angered further the next day when the team pulled within a run only to see the bullpen throw batting practice in the bottom of the eighth.
Remember when we were trusting this bullpen? For a bonus overreaction: they stink!
The Mets front office got too comfortable and has no idea how to build a roster properly
Patrick Mazeika, as magical of a start as he had to the season with a pair of unorthodox walk-off plate appearances, didn’t need to stay with the team. He’s a catcher and occasional first baseman on a team with two catchers and more than enough options to play first base.
It was curious that the team decided to keep him around even at the risk of upsetting a few illogical fans who believed in the Mazeika magic.
Nevertheless, the decision to keep Mazeika around could have hurt the Mets on Sunday a lot more than it did. Considering he did get his first big league hit with a solo home run and it was the only run the team scored, I can only overreact in hindsight. Still, it felt very complacent to even have him with the team.
What made the decision to keep Mazeika around a troublesome one was how many injuries suddenly popped up in addition to the ones that already had the Mets working with a short freight. Michael Conforto left the game after his first at-bat and Jeff McNeil exited the game early, too. The club was already rolling with a shortened bench. After replacing this pair, the Mets were down to a bench consisting of Tomas Nido and a bunch of empty space.
The Mets bench players have been giving this team a lot of help over the last few weeks. Injuries to Brandon Nimmo and J.D. Davis gave them an opportunity to play more. As nice as it has been to see, the team needs their starters. Every time a second-string player moves up, the bench weakens.
Depending on the severity of injuries to Conforto and McNeil, we could see a few new faces on the 26-man roster this week. My overreaction to this: the front office will make the wrong decision anyway.
The Mets offense is a much bigger problem than any of us realized
Let’s recap how the Mets scored runs this weekend, shall we?
On Friday, they got a two-run shot from Jonathan Villar. On Saturday, the bats came to life a little more and in a wider variety of ways. However, the five runs they did score wasn’t close to the 12-spot put up by Tampa Bay.
On Sunday, the series ended with a lone run across the board for the Mets. This came on the aforementioned home run from Mazeika. Other than his dinger, the club managed one other hit all afternoon.
It’s tough to win games when you don’t score many runs. I think it’s even more difficult when they come from your backup infielder and Triple-A catcher.
The Mets leave Tampa Bay with a lot of questions about the starting lineup. There’s no real obvious solution other than to sit down with Donnie Stevenson for a few more approach lessons. The bats looked far too listless in this series versus Tampa Bay. With a chance to steal a victory versus Tyler Glasnow on Friday, the momentum seemed to shift quickly.
Heading into the upcoming series versus the Atlanta Braves, this club has more guys hitting below .250 than anyone would like to see plus a superstar shortstop that can’t seem to string together a hot streak.
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Offense is down all around baseball this season. This doesn’t excuse the weekend the Mets bats had. They looked absolutely lost out there which wouldn’t be such a big concern if this was something new. It’s not. This built-to-score-runs team has failed to do much at the plate. We can only hope they take this sweep as hard as the fans do.