If you’re into brain teasers, I have a game for you. Most Mets fans have been attempting to answer this question all season, but the old adage of misery loving company should apply here. So it’s only fair that we open it up to the entirety of New York City.
How many ways can the Mets lose a baseball game?
Most of the stress has been placed on the offense and its inability to plate any runs. Despite a general upturn in pitching over the past seven weeks, including the Cy Young emergence of Jacob deGrom, New York is averaging just 3.99 runs per game. Only six teams in the majors average less than that.
Yoenis Cespedes will seemingly never come back from a hip injury as he’s already missed over half the season and manager Mickey Callaway is forced to trot out lineups that might do well in no higher than triple-A. The team’s .232 batting average is third-worst in the league.
But hold on Mets fans. There’s more ineptitude in other aspects of your roster.
Monday night’s 6-4 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates, which was good for the Mets’ seventh-straight defeat, was headlined by a pair of errors from third baseman Luis Guillorme. A natural shortstop forced to play third due to the general poor makeup of the roster, Guillorme bobbled an early grounder that would result in a run while airmailing a third-inning chance over first baseman Kevin Plawecki, a natural catcher.
Don’t forget the Mets stuck Dominic Smith, an actual first baseman, in left field.
Go figure.
He accounted for two of three errors the Mets had on the day, the third coming in the form of Asdrubal Cabrera muffing a ground ball at second.
It continues the worrying trend of bad fielding, though a lot of it has to do with Callaway’s shuffling.
The Mets have had the fifth-least amount of defensive chances in the majors yet are tied for the eighth-most errors in Major League Baseball. Their .982 fielding percentage as a team is tied for sixth-worst and their defensive runs saved mark of -47 is third-worst.
Just add it to the long list of broken things with this franchise.
