NY Mets: 2021 reasons why the 2021 season failed

The 2021 New York Mets season was a failure in so many ways. The Mets were expected to make the playoffs — and even spent 91 days in first place of the NL East.

Yet, the playoffs came, and once again, the Mets were just spectators watching on TV, just like you and me.

Not every reason can fit in this article, but here’s a small sample of 2021 reasons why the Mets failed in 2021.

92 — The number of innings pitched by Jacob deGrom
There is no pitcher in baseball better than deGrom. There is no player on the Mets better than deGrom. He is simply the best, no ifs ands or buts about it.

deGrom was in the midst of a historic year when he got hurt, putting up a 1.02 ERA and 0.554 WHIP in the first half of the season. The problem was, it was only the first half. He made just 15 starts, threw just 92 innings and didn’t step on the mound after the All-Star break. When he last pitched on July 7, the Mets had a 4.5 game lead in the NL East. A month later, they were one game back. Just a week after that, the Mets were in third place, and the season was realistically all but over.

The 2021 Mets went as deGrom went. When he went down, so did the Mets.

2 — The number of games started by Noah Syndergaard
Syndergaard was never expected to pitch a ton in 2021, but he was still expected to at least be somewhat of a contributor. Instead, he threw two total innings — that’s it.

It’s not his fault, he simply took longer to recover from his torn UCL than was expected. It happens, everyone recovers differently, and you can never really know how any person’s body will react.

Unfortunately for the Mets though, they needed Syndergaard badly. The team was ravaged by injuries (see above and below), particularly to the starting pitching. If Syndergaard was healthy, he could have been a huge part of this team. The Mets could have really, really used Thor. Unfortunately, it just didn’t work out that way.

19 — The number of different pitchers who started games
Ah yes, more injuries to the starting pitching. I’m sure everyone remembers the four games Jared Eickhoff started, but did you know he was just one of 19 different people to start games for the Mets in 2021?

Seven different people reached double-digit starts, with Marcus Stroman (33), Taijuan Walker (29) and Tylor Megill (18) leading the way. There were a halful of relievers who were used as openers, with Aaron Loup and Miguel Castro being the only primary bullpen arms to do so more than once.

Some other people who made starts for the Mets that you might have forgotten about Corey Oswalt, Jordan Yamamoto and Robert Stock, the last of whom has a really great Twitter page, highly recommend.

At the end of the day, the Mets had little to no consistency in the rotation. It’s hard to win with that.

421 — Combined days spent on the injured list from the opening day starting 9
Ok, this is the last part that has to do with injuries, I promise.

Of the nine players who started for the Mets on Opening Day — the eight fielders and the starting pitcher — they spent a combined 421 days on the IL, and not one of them had an injury-free season.

Here’s a reminder of the lineup the Mets trotted out on Opening Day, and how many days each of them spent on the IL: Pillar (14), Lindor (39), Conforto (38), Alonso (13), Davis (95), McCann (19), Nimmo (73), deGrom (94).

That’s not even counting every single other player who was hurt this year. It’s … not ideal, to say the least.

The Mets finished the season with more wins than losses — and that’s all that matters.

11 — Wins in September
While the Mets were probably emotionally out of the playoff race come September, mathematically, they were still very much in it. Just five games back of the Atlanta Braves going into the month, they had an opportunity to play themselves into the postseason with a good month.

They started the month off alright, winning some the games they were supposed to versus the Marlins and Nationals — but still probably losing more than they should. Then, they followed that up by losing 10 of 11 games to the Cardinals, Red Sox, Phillies and Brewers. Then, that was it. Book closed on the season. The Mets had one last chance to play winning baseball and save their season, and they couldn’t get it done.

1 — Winning record vs. a playoff team
If you want to make the playoffs, you have to beat good teams. The 2021 Mets didn’t do that. Of the 10 teams that made the playoffs, the Mets played eight of them throughout the season. Here are their records vs. those teams.

0-4 vs. the Boston Red Sox

0-3 vs. the Tampa Bay Rays

1-6 vs. the Los Angeles Dodgers

1-5 vs. the San Francisco Giants

2-5 vs. The St. Louis Cardinals

2-4 vs. the Milwaukee Brewers

9-10 vs. the Atlanta Braves

4-2 vs. the New York Yankees

The only playoff team the Mets beat more times than they lost to was the New York Yankees. The Yankees lost the Wild Card game to the Red Sox and were out of the playoffs after one game.

You don’t beat good teams, you don’t make the playoffs. In 2021 the Mets didn’t beat good teams.

And there it is. 2021 reasons why the Mets did not make the playoffs in 2021. Really though, all these reasons are just saying one thing — they sucked. That’s it, plain and simple.

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The New York Mets were a bad baseball team in 2021.