Mets vs. Dodgers Recap: West Coast Blues

Late last night in Los Angeles, the Mets dropped their fourth straight game to the Dodgers, 6-3. In what was a microcosm of this season thus far, the Mets lost a frustrating game that seemed to take far longer than it should have, and had moments of hope that ultimately were dashed.

The game led off with a solo home run by Curtis Granderson, putting the Mets in front for the second straight night after one batter. Hyun-Jin Ryu looked very hittable over his five innings, but the Mets just couldn’t take advantage in key spots.

Over the first few innings, Steven Matz looked quite strong, hitting his spots and flummoxing Dodger hitters. Then, as always seems to happen, human avatar for the mistakes of the Alderson era Justin Turner smashed a home run in the third, and the wheels started to come off. Just two batters later, Kike Hernandez hit a two-run shot, putting the Dodgers up 3-1.

There are certain Mets teams—like the 2015 squad—that seem like they can come back from anything. Even when this team mounts a comback, via a Travis d’Arnaud home run and a Lucas Duda run-scoring double, the inertia of failure seems to be pulling down on the team constantly.

Matz eventually got through six innings, striking out eight and walking five, while giving up three runs. Paul Sewald replaced him in the seventh, and promptly gave up a home run to Joc Pederson. He then allowed a single and walk, and was replaced by Jerry Blevins. Blevins got Cody Bellinger to fly out, but then walked the next three batters, bringing in two more runs in the process.

Blevins, who has been solid this season, looked absolutely gassed in his appearance, perhaps the result of being overused to an almost comical degree by Terry Collins this season. Fernando Salas collected the last four outs of the night, but not after the Mets loaded the bases in the bottom of the eighth, only to leave all three runners stranded.

The Mets now travel to San Francisco to play one of the few teams having a fundamentally worse year than themselves. Seth Lugo will face off against Ty Blach at 10:15 PM Eastern tonight at AT&T Park.

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Box scores

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Win Probability Added

Fangraphs.com

What’s WPA?

Big winners: Lucas Duda, +23.6% WPA, Curtis Granderson, +12.0% WPA
Big losers: Paul Sewald, -24.5% WPA, Wilmer Flores, -22.0% WPA, Jerry Blevins, -12.5% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Lucas Duda’s RBI double, +19.5% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Kike Hernandez’s home run, -21.8% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: -48.1% WPA
Total batter WPA: -8.2% WPA
GWRBI!: Joc Pederson