What’s Up with the Mets? ⚾️
The Mets lost their fourth consecutive game on Tuesday night, falling to the A’s by a 9-4 score (box)
RHP Paul Blackburn had his first negative start with the club, allowing seven runs (six earned) on six hits and two walks over four innings
RHP José Buttó did not fare well in relief, either, allowing two runs on four hits and three walks over two innings
RF Jesse Winker went 2-for-5 with an RBI double and a run scored in the loss
DH J.D. Martínez exited the game after being hit in the elbow by a 100 MPH fastball in his first plate appearance of the game
The Mets offense went 4-for-16 with runners in scoring position on Tuesday night, and is now 43-for-208 (.207) with RISP since July 14th – the third-worst average in MLB over that time
New York has now lost four games in a row, is 4-8 over their last 12 games, and is 12-12 in the second half of the season
RHP Brandon Sproat was ranked as the club’s No. 1 prospect in MLB.com’s farm system rankings refresh (MLB.com)
SS Luisangel Acuña dropped from 5th to 12th in the club’s prospect rankings
The Mets reportedly signed OF Eddie Rosario to a minor league contract (Sports Illustrated)
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Playoff Race 🏁
The Mets are now two games behind the Braves for the final Wild Card spot in the National League. They are 6 games behind the Padres and the Diamondbacks for the top wild card spots.
There are 43 games remaining.
Per FanGraphs, the Mets have a 20.6% chance of making the postseason.
New York has the 15th easiest schedule in MLB the rest of the way.
Tiebreakers:
vs. ATL: 5-5
vs. ARI: 2-2
vs. SD: 3-0
vs. CIN: 2-1
vs. STL: 4-2 (finished)
vs. SF: 2-4 (finished)
vs. PIT: 5-2 (finished)
vs. CHC: 4-3 (finished)
Injury Updates 🏥
DH J.D. Martínez (left elbow contusion) exited the game on Tuesday night after being hit by a pitch – x-rays were negative according to manager Carlos Mendoza
OF Starling Marte (bone bruise in knee) continued his rehab assignment and reported to Triple-A Syracuse as he nears a return to the club
Down on the Farm 🌾
OF Starling Marte (Rehab): 1-for-4
SS Luisangel Acuña (No. 12 prospect, Triple-A):
RHP Jack Wenninger (No. 30 prospect, High-A): 5 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 8 K (win)
BOX SCORES
Single-A STL | High-A BRK | Double-A BNG: GM 1 / GM 2 | Triple-A SYR
Today’s Game 🗓
Match-up: Mets (61-58) vs. Athletics (51-69)
Where: Citi Field — Flushing, NY
Starters: LHP David Peterson (6-1, 3.34 ERA) vs. RHP Joey Estes (5-4, 4.70 ERA)
When: 7:10 PM EDT
Where to Watch: SNY
Pete Alonso vs. the Pressure of the Moment ✍️
There are a lot of things that the Mets front office could have predicted going wrong before this season.
A boom-or-bust starting staff, a thin bullpen, the slow progress of their young players. All of that could’ve (and potentially have in many cases) hampered them over the first 4 1/2 months of the season.
But Pete Alonso being one of their biggest question marks probably wasn’t one of them.
While the numbers may not stand out as bad, there is no question that Alonso has not remotely had the contract season that he or the organization would have expected at the start of 2024.
Despite there being some negotiations in the past and an offer made by the Mets – which was reportedly a seven-year, $158 million offer that Alonso turned down – the slugging first baseman ultimately decided to play out this season without a contract and hit free agency at the end of this year. After switching agents to Scott Boras in the last year, none of those decisions comes off as any kind of surprise.
What has been surprising, though, has been Alonso’s performance.
Entering Tuesday night, the home grown slugger was hitting .240/.325/.464 with 25 home runs, 63 RBI and a .790 OPS this season. Outside of the COVID-shortened 2020 season, Alonso is currently on-pace to have the fewest home runs (34), fewest RBI (88) and lowest OPS of any major league season in his career.
Previous lows for Pete Alonso over a 162-game season…
Home Runs: 37 (2021)
RBI: 94 (2021)
OPS: .821 (2023)
It’s been a year of starts and stops for Alonso that has never truly see him have a sustained hot streak at any point. Just when you might have thought he was about to get hot after a multi-homer game vs the Rockies last week, Alonso answered that by going 0-for-his-next-16 with nine strikeouts.
What has been the most concerning aspect of this strange season for the Mets former first round draft pick has been his remarkable ineptitude in pressure situations.
After going 1-for-2 in such situations last night, Alonso is now hitting .211 with runners in scoring position this season. Among the 76 batters who have had at least 110 plate appearances with RISP this season, Alonso’s .211 average ranks as the fourth-worst in all of baseball. Alonso has also struggled with the bases loaded in a limited sample this season, going just 1-for-9 with four strikeouts over 10 plate appearances.
Alonso’s struggles don’t just stop with runners in scoring position, however. With runners on base in general, Alonso is now hitting .209/.314/.407 for the season. There have only been 14 hitters in all of baseball that have had at least 230 plate appearances with runners on base this season and among them, Alonso’s .209 batting average ranks dead last. The next-closest hitter to Alonso is Alex Bregman of the Astros, who is hitting .242 with runners on base – that’s a 33-point gap.
If all of that wasn’t enough, high-leverage situations are where Alonso has seen his absolute worst performance this year.
In 53 plate appearances in high-leverage spots this season, Alonso is hitting .190 (worst in MLB, min. 50 PA) with a .310 slugging percentage (worst) and 85 wRC+ (second-worst).
All-in-all, the numbers don’t lie and if anything, they only back up what we’ve all seen with our eyes throughout this season. Whether or not you want the club to re-sign Alonso this offseason and make him a Met for life, there is no denying the fact that he has been one of, if not the least clutch every day player in all of baseball this season.
Perhaps those numbers in clutch situations underscore the larger issue that Alonso is facing, which is that he has largely wilted under pressure of any kind this year. This not only applies to the pressure of these in-game situations, but the overall pressure he has been facing and scrutiny he feels that he is under as a man playing for a contract for the first time in his professional career.
Moments like this can act as an important reminder that while you can look at the back of the baseball cards, statistical trends and how they’d rate in MLB The Show, at the end of the day these are still human beings who are affected by other components that we may not always factor in. Emotions and mental fortitude are a part of this game maybe more than any other sport, and can come into play at any moment whether you anticipate it or not.
For Pete Alonso, it may very well be the reasoning behind his struggles in the clutch this season. As far as trying to evaluate whether or not that’s the kind of player you want playing under the pressure of a long-term extension to, that’s may be a conversation for another day…
Around the League 🚩
Astros DH Yordan Álvarez crushed a deep home run to help propel the club to a 3-2 win vs the Rays
The Yankees lost the newly acquired INF Jazz Chisholm Jr. to the injured list due to a UCL injury, but got back on track with a victory over the White Sox thanks to a three homer night from Juan Soto
Dodgers DH Shohei Ohtani crushed his 37th home run of the season as the club blew-out the Brewers in Milwaukee
The Phillies lost their fourth straight game on Tuesday night, falling to the Marlins by a 5-0 score at home
