Cookie Crumbled

The Mets have been without Brandon Nimmo all week and traded away Mark Canha and Tommy Pham. But those three absences should not be used as an excuse for why the Mets were nearly shut out for the last two nights by an historically bad baseball team in the Royals. The offense, after putting up six runs on Tuesday in a losing effort, has looked as absent as at any point in 2023. Today’s 9-2 loss somehow felt even worse than the score indicates.

Sure, it’s hard to score runs when DJ Stewart, Rafael Ortega, Jonathan Arauz, and Danny Mendick are anchoring the lineup, but the rest of the Mets’ lineup, the ones who aren’t only on the team because a fifth of the team was traded away, aren’t hitting either, or at least not hitting when there are men on base.

But the bigger story here is that Carlos Carrasco gave up six runs in six plus innings of work today, and continues to flounder as the season progresses. Cookie seems like one of the good guys in the game, and no one wants to see him go out this way, but things are looking truly bleak for him right now.

Josh Walker gave up two runs in relief as well, again, against the Royals. This did lead to the second career pitching appearance by Danny Mendick, which went better than you would’ve thought, honestly. Giving up one hit and letting an inherited runner score, Mendick was the second most successful Met pitcher of the day, after John Curtiss’s scoreless seventh inning (well, scoreless once Curtiss was in the game).

The only offense of the day came in the form of a two-run home run in the ninth inning by Francisco Lindor to pull the Mets within seven. It was a nail-biter, folks.

The Mets play Baltimore, a good team, this weekend, so Dickey help us all.

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Win Probability Added

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What’s WPA?

Big Mets winner: You think there was a big winner?
Big Mets loser: Carlos Carrasco, -14.1% WPA
Mets pitchers: -14.1% WPA
Mets hitters: -35.9% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Mark Vientos’s fifth inning single, +4.0% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Salvador Pérez’s first inning RBI double, -9.5% WPA