3 Mets to blame most for their embarrassing sweep against the Brewers

Before the New York Mets even got to their season finale on Easter, we knew they were going to lose the first series of the 2024 season. Don’t panic yet. There’s a lot of baseball left. Mets players still have the “there are still X amount of games left” to turn to. 

Now 0-3 following an embarrassing weekend, the team needs to find a way to move on. First, we blame some Mets.

1) Luis Severino

Maybe spring training statistics don’t matter after all. Luis Severino seems to fit this description. In his outing on Saturday, Sevy made us all forget about his 2 earned runs in 14 innings in the preseason. He allowed 6 in 5 to the Brewers with the only real bonus being that he managed to get through 5 full frames.

The fanfare of the Mets signing Severino has already taken a hit. A debatable free agent signing in the offseason, many (I’ll attest to this) bought into the Mets fixing him. Three runs in the first innings with what could’ve easily been declared an error by Zack Short at third base started off his career with the Mets on the wrong note. It was the equivalent of instead of playing Ode to Joy he smashed his face into the keys and blew a raspberry.

Unfortunately, it was a fifth inning balk with of all people Rhys Hoskins standing on third base which would do the most unforgivable damage. If not for that run, the Mets would have conceivably tied up the game although there’s no guarantee things would’ve gone the same way otherwise.

2) Jeff McNeil

A couple of Mets hitters had a miserable weekend. Jeff McNeil, however, added his place in the center of controversy on Opening Day when he reacted so loudly to the controversial slide against him by Rhys Hoskins. Dirty or not, McNeil’s excessive response set the tone for the rest of the series.

Add in how little McNeil contributed at the plate and he deserves at least some of the blame. McNeil started his season going 1 for 10. Following a down year for the 2022 NL batting champion, this was not the pleasant beginning fans were hoping to see.

Others equally as culpable slumpers from the core of the roster include Brandon Nimmo and Francisco Lindor. They had arguably as bad if not worse opening weekends. Nimmo K’ed a whole bunch and Lindor even added an error to his stat sheet. Their performances were more “lost” in all of the controversy.

McNeil’s time as the cleanup hitter will run out quickly with the eventual arrival of J.D. Martinez clearing him from those duties. With his arrival to the Mets roster still a few more days away, it’ll be up to the manager to make a switch and maybe reward hot-hitting Francisco Alvarez with a higher spot in the order.

Speaking of the skipper, he sets the tone and the tone right now is a bad one.