Francisco Lindor will unjustifiably get put through the wringer for however long it takes for his bat to wake up. There’s the first half Lindor. Second half Lindor. Let’s not forget the first three weeks Lindor who is the worst enemy of New York Mets fans out there.
The offense was beyond frustrating. Highlighted by a Juan Soto home run that turned out to be insurance, their solo runs scored in the pair of losses came without much fanfare. The sacrifice fly by Lindor with an out in the ninth and Jose Siri’s miraculous dash home were more situational than anything else.
Yeah, if you have fingers to point, aim them at the hitters. But the biggest frustration of all is how awesome the bullpen looked with little to show for it.
The Mets bullpen delivered this weekend
Huascar Brazoban’s 2.1 innings of clean baseball on Thursday, followed by the more routine Reed Garrett to A.J. Minter to Ryne Stanek, and finally Edwin Diaz on Saturday was stellar. We got to see Jose Butto do much of the same on Saturday followed by the season debut of Max Kranick that, again, worked out well. Oh, there was also an inning from Danny Young in there as well. We can’t forget about him.
Every Mets reliever managed to appear in a game against Houston. Nobody gave up more than one hit. Not a single run was scored against them. In fact, even if we were to look back at the starting pitching performances by Clay Holmes and Griffin Canning in the pair of losses, they weren’t so bad themselves.
Holmes’ problem was throwing strikes and working his pitch count up too high, too early. Canning was much better, but left on the mound a batter or two too long would end up costing him and the team. Carlos Mendoza went left when he should have gone right—right to Butto of course.
Hey, it happens. Against a team we figure will make the postseason in their ballpark, winning one of three is chalk. The Mets bullpen did their part in the effort and in a way so did the starters. It’s hard to win games when your team’s hitters don’t provide much help at all.
