Mets vs. Diamondbacks recap: Snakebitten, baby

Hansel is not hot right now. Coming off a game that saw the Mets’ bullpen blow a six-run lead on Sunday afternoon, Hansel Robles was the culprit when things went awry for the bullpen again on Monday night in Arizona, as he surrendered five runs on a pair of home runs in another Mets loss.

But Robles wasn’t the only player who caused the Mets to lose. Facing Zack Godley, the Mets’ offense didn’t do much of anything to take advantage of the five walks he issued. Rene Rivera’s single that drove in the first run of the game in the second inning wound up being the Mets’ only hit against Godley in his six-and-two-thirds innings. The Mets’ offense has not been the problem lately, but Monday night was a bad time for one of its worst games.

Zack Wheeler certainly wasn’t to blame for the loss, though he factored into one of the more curious decisions during the game. He threw five scoreless innings, gave up a game-tying solo home run in the sixth, and was already over 100 pitches when that inning ended. Terry Collins still sent him up to bat for himself with two outs and nobody on in the top of the seventh inning, all so Wheeler could maybe get another out in the bottom of the inning. He gave up a single to the first batter he faced, though, and Collins went to the bullpen.

It has been a season of ups and downs for the Mets thus far. After a 7-3 start to the year, the team lost ten out of eleven games over a miserable stretch in April. But they bounced back nicely from that to win eight of their next eleven games, which had them back at .500 on the season just a week ago.

But now, they’ve lost five games in a row, and although it’s still pretty early in the marathon baseball season, they can’t afford to slip too much further away.

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Box scores

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Win Probability Added

What’s WPA?

Big winners: Zack Wheeler, +16.5% WPA,
Big losers: Hansel Robles, -31.7% WPA, T.J. Rivera, -16.9% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Rene Rivera drives in a run with a single in the second, +9.4% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Yasmany Tomas hits a three-run home run in the eighth, -20.6% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: -7.3% WPA
Total batter WPA: -42.7% WPA
GWRBI!: Yasmany Tomas