NY Mets offense picked an inconvenient time to go silent

If you listen to WFAN, watch SNY, or read any of the Rising Apple's pieces, you've consumed enough New York Mets content to know why yesterday's loss really stung. All losses hurt, sure. But this one hit below the belt in a very specific way.

It's weird to say the Mets were preparing for game six of the season, one game in advance, but it's not inaccurate. On Tuesday, with the game seemingly creeping towards out of reach, Carlos Mendoza opted to relieve Kodai Senga with the much-maligned Richard Lovelady. One home run later, and St Louis had cemented a 3-0 win.

The only problem with that is that the game was never "out of reach." If Mendoza really wanted a W in that spot, he could have used any of the many relievers ahead of Lovelady in the totem pole. And while the offense was the real culprit to blame in the shutout loss, that didn't stop fans from questioning Mendoza's decision to seemingly "punt" on the game.

Take issue with that logic if you want. But Mendoza did that to save the top dogs for a rainy day. Today was that rainy day (literally and figuratively), and those top dogs were all but wasted.

That makes everyone involved look really, really bad.

All of that for... this?

There's 156 games to go. So of course, it's time to absolutely panic about the offensive production.

Or at least, that's what it's like living in the New York media bubble. Anyone who thinks that the hitting is doomed either doesn't watch much baseball or is Frank the Tank from Barstool. The truth is, it's too early to react to much of anything.

That said, today should've been the day for some runs. Calling Lovelady to the mound on Tuesday was far from an outright waiving of the white flag. But it was absolutely geared toward saving better arms for a time when the Mets weren't already losing late in the game.

And while Freddy Paralta didn't bring his A game, he brought his B game and held St. Louis to just one earned run in 5.1 innings of work. Then, the Mets proceeded to bring out not one, not two, not three... but five of their best relievers to collectively maintain the 1-1 tie, which lasted until the 11th inning, when Tobias Myers entered. A measly pop-fly by Masyn Winn somehow missed Carson Benge's outstretched glove in shallow right field. Game over.

$37.7 million is the guaranteed grand total the Mets ushered to the mound after taking out Peralta. That's about 18% of the guaranteed total payroll for this season. It'd be bad to waste a good performance from just one of those guys. But it would be ok. Two guys? Oh well, it's a 162-game season. Three guys? That's starting to get a little uncomfortable, but we'll be fine.... right?

Four guys? Ok, this is starting to get bad.

Five? Ughhh...

And while technically Myers was the pitcher at the scene of the crime when the final run scored, it wasn't even his earned run, as JJ Wetherholt reached second base for no reason other than the extra-innings rule. So that's a combined 5.1 innings of 0 earned runs, and just two hits (one of which was that lazy shallow fly that Carson Benge really should have caught). You aren't going to get much better than that.

Aside from Juan Soto's solo shot in the 6th, the offense was asleep at the wheel. No one finished with more than one base hit. Francisco Lindor, Brett Baty, Marcus Semien, Francisco Alvarez, Tyrone Taylor, and Carson Benge combined for 18 at-bats without a single hit and just two walks.

Carlos Mendoza was asked about the state of the offense after the game, and while his words weren't exactly scathing, they were pointed.

I won't backtrack from my stance that we are weeks and/or months away from actually being concerned about the offense. But the hitters have been extraordinarily bad to begin the year. And that is well worth keeping a keen eye on.