69-69, for the first time in their history.
27-27 in one-run games, the most such nail-biters of any 2021 club.
Do these Mets look like a playoff team to you?
They sure didn’t on Monday afternoon at Nationals Park, as Edwin Diaz handed over a 4-3 victory to the white-flag-drawn Nats, his second blown save of this wraparound series. They sure don’t, in the bigger picture, still relevant thanks only to the National League’s forgiving middle and lower classes, standing at .500 thanks to an 8-2 rampage against these Nats and the Marlins.
Of course, the beauty of sports is you don’t have to look like a playoff team, or even play like one, to be a team in the playoffs. Which is why the Mets need not give up hope despite blowing a golden opportunity to gain ground on the dormant Braves and Padres and stay apace with the triumphant Phillies.
“It’s definitely down to a sprint. It’s not a marathon anymore,” James McCann said. “And you’ve got to put blinders on and not let outside noise, not let a game like today, snowball into anything else.”
It should help that the Mets headed from DC to Miami, where the Marlins are racing the Nats to the NL East’s bottom, for three games, and shoot, as much as their strength of schedule intensifies after that, neither of their subsequent two opponents — the Yankees over the weekend, then the Cardinals a week from now, both at home — is cruising.
Can the Mets solve their Rubik’s Cube of a campaign, however? Their starting pitcher Monday, Trevor Williams — acquired from the Cubs alongside Javier Baez at the trade deadline — grinded through five turbulent innings, giving up only two runs despite surrendering 10 hits and two walks. The next three relievers, Jeurys Familia, Brad Hand and Seth Lugo, all put up zeroes, only for Diaz to resume his party-pooper role in the ninth, walking Alcides Escobar (the owner of a career .294 on-base percentage) and Josh Bell before Andrew Stevenson tied and Carter Kieboom won it with singles.
“I’ve got to command the fastball better to get good results,” Diaz said, and if I were Rojas and company, I wouldn’t change closers yet. At least give him one more chance.
Besides, as Rojas noted, “I know we were talking about Edwin just now … but let’s talk about the offense too, right? That’s been the hot topic almost the entire season of our outcomes in games. We went 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position today. And we had chances to score more runs and to probably be a different game than 3-2 in the ninth.”
It felt like a quiet 1-for-10, probably because their first two opportunities resulted in Michael Conforto moving Francisco Lindor from second to third base (courtesy of a grounder to the right side) and then Pete Alonso singling home Lindor for a 1-0 Mets lead in the first. That proved it for that department, though, the Mets’ second run coming on a Jeff McNeil double play that plated Javier Baez from third base in the fourth and Alonso’s 30th homer, a solo shot in the sixth off Nats starter Patrick Corbin.
“You’ve just got to finish. You’ve got to deliver,” Rojas said. “You’ve got to score the runs that you’re setting yourself up to score.”
Surely Rojas didn’t mind taking some heat off his closer with these remarks, yet the story of the Mets’ season remains their underperforming offense, even after it contributed greatly to the climb back to .500.
Alonso now stands at .417/.444/.792 in six September games, and regardless whether the Mets make the playoffs, this trends strongly toward an important rebound season for one of the franchise’s faces. Maybe he can carry his teammates some more.
Maybe with 24 games to go, the Mets somehow can pull this off. Here at this Labor Day milepost, however, mediocre by some pretty important measures, they sure don’t inspire much confidence.
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