PERFECTLY PATHETIC
Rays’ Eovaldi flirts with perfection as Mets reach even newer low in shutout:
The imperfect team nearly was “perfectgamed,” which would have been the … well, you don’t even need me to finish the rest of that thought by now.
Citi Field still is where the bottomless pit of another lost baseball summer in Flushing absolutely scoffs at the term “rock bottom” — as first-year manager Mickey Callaway naively had assessed the situation over one month ago.
It still is where things always can get a little bit worse, a tad more depressing. Just wait for the next game, the next series or, in many cases over the decades, the next season.
Nate Eovaldi, the hardthrowing former Yankee who suddenly looks like he could be a strong fit for them or any contender seeking a pitching upgrade before the trade deadline after returning from 2016 Tommy John surgery, carried a perfect game through six innings on Sunday, while minor-league fill-in Chris Flexen was tagged for five early runs as the Mets were thumped 9-0 by Tampa Bay, their second consecutive shutout defeat.
That count actually is not a bly the score baseball uses to designate a game as a forfeit, and this feeble loss fittingly as was much of a walkover as even the careening Mets have experienced during what is now a mostly unwatchable 35-51 washout. That is saying a ton when you consider Callaway’s sinking club now has gone 14 consecutive series without winning any of them since a three-game sweep of Arizona in the middle of May.
“We just have to be better,” Callaway massively understated following the game, after more of the typical captipping and attempted positive spins we have come to expect from the first-year manager.
In fact, in case the organiza tion’s approach to the pending July 31 non-waiver trade deadline — and the ongoing debate over which players the Mets should pawn off, including co-aces Jacob deGrom or Noah Syndergaard — isn’t enough of a daily reminder of this latest downward spiral, check out Callaway’s latest optimistic public offering on his flailing lineup, which also had been blanked by Blake Snell one day earlier.
“I think the energy has been there the whole year, whether we’re on the way to almost getting no-hit or whatever,” Callaway said. “I think guys were locked in. They were going up there and I haven’t seen our dugout not locked into the game or a guy goofing around or whatever.
“I think everybody wants to win in there. And those are the things you look for. The bottom line is this is not Little League, guys aren’t going to be cheering and rah-rah, but they’re locked into the game and ready when we call their name, and those are the things you look for.” Not to try to explain how baseball works or anything, as Callaway did condescendingly over his bullpen usage last month, another important factor to look for are actual results, and injuries or not, the Mets have scored the third-fewest runs in MLB in 2018.
As for the 14 consecutive series played without winning one (0-11-3), let’s examine that
statistic in these unfathomable terms:
Second-time All-Star deGrom leads the majors in ERA despite a criminal lack of run support/bullpen help, with Steven Matz and Zack Wheeler both pitching effectively recently with similar misfortune in the win column.
“You almost get lucky and win a series, but it just hasn’t happened for us,” Callaway lamented.
“We’re strong in the starting pitching, so it is pretty unbelievable,” admitted leadoff batter Brandon Nimmo. “I think it just shows again how much of a disconnect we’ve had with good starting pitching and poor offense, and then good offense and maybe they happen to have one bad daypitchers …Our starting are fantastic, so it’s definitely no fault of theirs.”
Syndergaard finally could be back in the rotation as early as Friday after throwing 71 pitches in five innings in Coney Island on Sunday.
With returns from the DL for Yoenis Cespedes and Jay Bruce less clear, Eovaldi had retired the first 18 batters he faced, one at-bat more feeble than the next, until Nimmo opened the seventh with a clean single to right field.
“Oh, I was extremely aware of it,” Nimmo said of the perfecto possibility. “Knew he was pitching well, knew we hadn’t had any hits, because it was the seventh inning and I was only getting my third at-bat. So I was pretty aware of it, but he actually gave me two mistakes that at-bat and I was finally able to capitalize on one of them.
“Credit to him for pitching well, but you never want to get no-hit. You never want to be a part of that.”
Fittingly, Nimmo immediately was erased on a doubleplay grounder, as was Michael Conforto following a walk from reliever Andrew Kittredge in the eighth. Devin Mesoraco’s single in the ninth at least helped the Mets avoid the ignominy of using the minimum batters for a nineinning game.
Come to think of it, that truly would have been perfect.