PITTSBURGH — For approximately 20 minutes Saturday night, the door to the visitors’ clubhouse in the bowels of PNC Park stayed shut as the New York Mets’ players aired issues out amongst themselves.
A handful of players spoke, including Francisco Lindor, a de facto captain of sorts, and Pete Alonso, another one of the team’s strongest voices. Publicly and privately, players declined to share specifics of the messaging beyond the theme of sticking together. The gathering lasted long enough for several coaches and player personnel types to switch into street clothes. The discussion, multiple players said, started organically.
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Brandon Nimmo, another clubhouse leader and the team’s longest-tenured player, called the meeting “good” and “productive.”
“We’ll look to build on that one step at a time,” said Nimmo, who added he was not one of the six or seven players who spoke during the meeting. “It’s not going to be fixed overnight. I’d love it if it was. But it’s not going to be fixed overnight.”
As the team played poorly over the last week, the Mets’ leaders held off on a group talk, trying to keep things in perspective. The meeting ended up feeling similar to last year’s pivotal gathering, though the circumstances are different. Last year, the Mets were well outside of the playoff picture. This year, they are 48-36.
Mets manager Carlos Mendoza argues with home plate umpire Roberto Ortiz after being ejected from the game against the Pirates on Saturday. (Charles LeClaire / Imagn Images)
Not much changed over the last week. Aside from Carlos Mendoza’s first ejection as the Mets’ manager, the team’s 9-2 loss to the lowly Pittsburgh Pirates (34-50) on Saturday did not feature characteristics that were markedly different from their other losses — after all they had just lost 9-1 to the same bad team the day prior. They didn’t pitch well. They didn’t hit well. They didn’t defend well.
But that’s the whole point. This keeps happening. The Mets have lost 12 of their last 15 games.
So it was no surprise what Lindor shared as his hope regarding what emerges from the meeting.
“Nothing but winning,” Lindor said. “This is not ‘Rah-Rah,’ and ‘Now, the season is going to turn around.’ We are competing — still. We are one game or a game and a half from first place. And we are in the top for the wild card. This is not a magic thing. Nobody is hoping for that. This is not how it works.
“If that’s how it worked, we would’ve done it probably a while ago. It’s just part of the adversity we’re dealing with.”
Nonetheless, the Mets took the appropriate action after the game. Their meeting last year coincided with an epic turnaround. Generally, in sports, that is not typical. Nimmo said Saturday’s meeting, while feeling similar to last year’s, also felt similar to others over the course of his career. Some had better results. Others, not so much. But it was just last week when Lindor said that conversations needed to happen organically. So if that is indeed what happened, it sounds like a positive step.
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The problem is that there are so many more of those steps that the Mets need to take.
Nimmo said the club’s morale has stayed strong throughout this poor stretch.
“That’s the trouble,” he added.
That’s why Nimmo’s point about things not getting fixed overnight stood out in importance. This is likely going to take time.
Just consider the state of the roster.
After a 90-minute rain delay midway through the first inning, the Mets’ brain trust decided the best thing to do was to have starter Paul Blackburn return to the mound for the second inning. Granted, the game shouldn’t have started on time, and when it did in the first place, Blackburn was right to call it “bizarre.” During the delay, he kept throwing. Still, it was an unconventional choice to stick with him. In the second inning, Blackburn allowed five straight hits and failed to record an out.
At best, Blackburn was supposed to give the Mets another 35 or 40 pitches, which amounts to another couple of innings. They felt they needed to ask that of him. And they did so because of the state of their bullpen, Mendoza said.
Paul Blackburn pitches against the Pirates in the first inning, which was interrupted by a 90-minute rain delay. He also returned to pitch the second inning. (Justin Berl / Getty Images)
The Mets’ bullpen wasn’t used Friday. The club is off on Monday. Yet Mendoza said that he still had relievers he preferred to avoid. That’s what happens when a club’s starting pitcher fails to record an out in the sixth inning of a game for 11 consecutive games. It adds up. The situation also calls on the Mets to constantly shuttle pitchers on and off the roster, leading to a few members of the bullpen being fresh from Triple A.
Meanwhile, the Mets’ offense, designed to carry the club, has averaged 2.9 runs per game during this ugly 15-game period, despite an 11-run outburst in one of the few wins and a historically good month from Juan Soto. There are too many spots where the Mets receive little production, including, on most days, the back half of their lineup.
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It was more of the same for the Mets on Saturday. They left 10 runners on base and went 2-for-8 with runners in scoring position. For all of that, the Mets still trailed just 3-2 heading into the eighth inning. But Huascar Brazoban, once part of a circle of trust and now in a slump, and Colin Poche, summoned Friday from Triple A, combined to allow six runs. By then, Mendoza was long gone from the dugout, having been ejected in the fourth inning for arguing about balls and strikes (though he did have a point there against home plate umpire Roberto Ortiz).
Mendoza said he wasn’t trying to fire up his players; he was just fed up with an inconsistent strike zone. Even if some of the recent context did play a part in Mendoza taking such action, it did not seem to make a difference. It’s unclear whether a team discussion will do the same.
On its own, a players’ meeting won’t fix the Mets. Though it may have helped, it is not what fixed the Mets last year, either; it was the consistent, inspired play that came afterward. That’s what needs to happen next this time, too.
“It was good,” Nimmo said of Saturday’s meeting. “We’ll see — we’ll see if it works or not.”
(Top photo of Huascar Brazoban after being removed in the eighth inning against the Pirates: Charles LeClaire / Imagn Images)
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