NEW YORK — Buck Showalter sauntered into Citi Field’s press conference room just past 4 p.m. Monday, only 12 hours after a chartered Delta jet landed at Kennedy International Airport. The plane had left New York a few days earlier with the first-place New York Mets aboard. The group who returned in the early hours of Monday were beaten, bedraggled and bound to finish in second.
Advertisement
Showalter spent a portion of his afternoon — as he does most days in this, his 21st season as a big-league manager — surveying the mood of his players. “You’re always taking a little snapshot of what’s going on,” he said. After a season-altering sweep by the Atlanta Braves, Showalter saw no reason to sugarcoat.
How was the group feeling?
“How do you think?” Showalter said. “Someone said: ‘Are they pressing?’ Of course they’re pressing. God, it’s a tough ride, a tough plane ride. I know how much they care. I know how much the fans care. You hate to disappoint people. It hurts.”
Only two months earlier, Showalter had sat in the same seat, at a time when October disappointment felt like a relic from a different era. On Aug. 7, the Mets completed a four-day demolition of the Braves to increase their advantage in the National League East to 6 1/2 games; the lead swelled to seven a day later. It would only shrink from there. Over the course of the next 57 days, a division would be lost and a marvelous summer in Flushing would be placed in peril of an early exit in the Wild Card Series.
The Mets won 100 games but denied themselves the customary champagne celebration when they clinched a playoff spot last month. They were saving the big bash for a division title. That party is now on ice after Atlanta downed the Marlins on Tuesday evening to complete the reversal, clinch a first-round bye and force the Mets to host an extra series beginning on Friday.
It would be uncharitable to call this a collapse. The primary reason for the Mets dropping in the standings was the unceasing ascent of the Braves. Atlanta played at a 118-win pace after that series in New York. The Mets managed a more commendable 93-win clip. On seven occasions in those 57 days, the two teams faced off. The Braves won six times, including the decisive series last weekend at Truist Park.
Advertisement
In the process, the Braves exposed the deficiencies that, in the eyes of scouts and executives around the game, sunk the Mets: A dearth of power in the lineup. A lack of depth on a roster ill-equipped to handle a month-long absence from outfielder Starling Marte. A lack of urgency at the trade deadline after an aggressive winter from owner Steve Cohen and general manager Billy Eppler set up the team for initial success. Given these issues, not even the team’s well-decorated pitching duo of Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer could save the club in Atlanta.
In most divisions, in most seasons, the pluckiness and resilience of the Mets offense combined with the general excellence of deGrom and Scherzer would be enough to buoy the team into a first-round bye. This has been the most successful Mets regular season since 1988. Yet in this division, in this season, the Mets will be left to ponder what went awry.
The team will not have long to dwell. Despite the hurt wrought over the weekend, despite the disappointment of losing out to Atlanta, the Mets will host a playoff game on Friday night. Some lessons learned over these 57 days cannot yet be acted upon. But some can.
“We have a lot of opportunities that we’ve taken advantage of,” Showalter said. “And there will be another one this season.”
(The Mets celebrate a July victory over the Braves in Atlanta: Dale Zanine / USA Today)One opportunity had already come and gone. The Mets arrived at the trade deadline on Aug. 2 at 65-37 — the franchise’s second-best record ever through 102 games. Yet the threat from Atlanta was real. Already the Braves had trimmed the lead to 3 1/2 games after it had ballooned to 10 1/2 games on June 1.
By that point in the season, the Mets’ strengths and weaknesses were clear. Scherzer had returned from a midsummer oblique injury and deGrom had just made his 2022 debut. The rotation looked stable. The lineup was lengthy but shallow, lacking a slugger to pair with first baseman Pete Alonso. The team lagged in production at designated hitter and catcher.
Advertisement
The moment suggested urgency. Eppler had built an excellent team, the most crucial element of the formula. Neither Scherzer nor deGrom would be any younger in 2023 — and deGrom had already signaled his intention to test the open market. Star closer Edwin Díaz and center fielder Brandon Nimmo were also approaching free agency. Around the game, rival executives expected Eppler to demonstrate the same aggression he had practiced in the winter, snatching up Scherzer, Starling Marte, Mark Canha and Eduardo Escobar before the lockout froze the sport.
Yet the Mets did little to move the needle. In the fortnight before the deadline, scouts and executives noted the Mets’ disinterest in moving top prospects — not just blue-chippers like Francisco Álvarez or Brett Baty, but also Mark Vientos, Ronny Mauricio, Alex Ramírez and Matthew Allan further down the list. Multiple industry sources said the Mets were wary after dealing Pete Crow-Armstrong to the Cubs last summer for Javier Báez and Trevor Williams. Cohen had vowed to replicate the success of the Dodgers, which has relied on homegrown stars. The front office weighed the merits of further depleting a top-heavy farm system but opted for caution.
That stance, combined with the club’s dearth of mid-level prospects, limited New York’s options. “It was clear they were bargain shopping,” one executive said. They didn’t engage seriously with the Cubs on Willson Contreras, a slugging catcher nearly acquired a year before in an earlier iteration of the Báez trade. The Mets were skeptical of Contreras’s catching ability, an opinion shared by much of the industry. In a stunner, Contreras remained a Cub after the deadline. But in assessing the Mets’ deadline approach, one scout pointed behind the plate: “Never got better at catcher and needed to.”
Rather than pursuing one solution at DH, like Contreras or Red Sox stalwart J.D. Martinez, the Mets dealt for Daniel Vogelbach and Darin Ruf to form a platoon. Several rival executives viewed the Ruf trade, in which the Mets surrendered four players including big-leaguer J.D. Davis, as an overpay for a part-time player. While Vogelbach has performed well, Ruf has been a disaster — and Davis has recaptured his form in San Francisco. Carrying both Ruf and Vogelbach these past two months has limited Eppler’s roster flexibility. In September, with Ruf stalled, the Mets called up Vientos and Álvarez hoping to find better production from a right-handed DH.
Perhaps it made sense not to give up serious prospects, some executives reasoned. Few hitters dealt at the deadline have played well — even Juan Soto in San Diego. Josh Bell, who came along in the team with Washington, has made the Padres long for Eric Hosmer’s bat. Andrew Benintendi broke his wrist soon after joining the Yankees. David Peralta has hit below his usual marks with Tampa Bay. Robbie Grossman hasn’t done much for the Braves.
Down the road, skeptics may well commend the Mets for their discipline, rather than chide them for passivity. After the deadline, Eppler justified the approach by pointing to the organization’s cumulative World Series odds. This, he explained, was not just about 2022.
“One of the things we’ve talked about here is just really trying to maintain that organizational discipline,” he said, “to crush any urge to make a snap or an impulsive decision and give up large amounts of future World Series odds or expectation in exchange for just some marginal gains right now.”
Advertisement
Just how marginal those gains might have been — adding power to a lineup lacking pop, for example — would become a subject for debate as the second half continued.
On an August trip to Miami, a week after the beatdown by the Mets, Braves catcher Travis d’Arnaud approached general manager Alex Anthopoulos with a request. He wanted the ice cream machine back.
A year earlier, franchise cornerstone Freddie Freeman had beseeched Anthopoulos to outfit the clubhouse with a soft-serve dispenser. Anthopoulos obliged, and the Braves won the World Series. But Freeman had departed in free agency, and the ice cream machine had not returned. Anthopoulos made d’Arnaud a deal: If the Braves took three of four from the Mets in an upcoming series at Truist Park, there would be dessert.
“We knew deGrom and Scherzer were starting in that series,” Anthopoulos said. “So, ‘ah, three out of four is going to be tough.’ And they did it.”
As the Braves gathered in the handshake line on Aug. 18, having knocked off deGrom for a third victory in four games, d’Arnaud cozied up to Kenley Jansen and started a chant. “Ice cream! Ice cream!” Soon after, Chick-fil-A furnished a machine. “Which was nice,” Anthopoulos said. The entire episode struck him as silly.
“Normally, I don’t believe in providing our athletes with … ” Anthopoulos said before he burst into laughter. “I mean, what’s next, the Ferris wheel?”
For Atlanta, the season looked more like a roller coaster. The team opened its championship defense with losing records in April and May. The early faceplant permitted the Mets to jet out in front. The difference deflated in steady fashion. Rather than surrender, after dropping four of five to the Mets in early August, the group surged.
With the ice cream machine installed, the Braves winnowed the distance in the standings. Atlanta followed an eight-game winning streak by winning 14 of their next 18. The Braves are a battle-tested group that has grown accustomed to winning, with five consecutive division crowns. The team did not slow despite extended slumps for Dansby Swanson (.669 OPS in August and September), Matt Olson (.692 OPS) and Austin Riley (.729). The arrival of dynamic rookies like Michael Harris II, Spencer Strider and Vaughn Grissom propelled the club when the veterans staggered.
Advertisement
The dichotomy with the Mets was not lost on others in the industry. A youth movement boosted the Braves. The Mets waited until the waning weeks of the season to call up prospects like Álvarez and Vientos. The team also caught some bad luck: Brett Baty, the 22-year-old former first-round pick, appeared in only 11 games before tearing a thumb ligament.
There was another more debilitating injury still to come.
(Starling Marte after being struck on the hand: Charles LeClaire / USA Today)The most consequential pitch of these 57 days escaped the right hand of Pirates starter Mitch Keller at 96 mph on Sept. 6. The fastball rode inside, destined to make contact with flesh, rather than lumber or leather. The pitch smashed into the right hand of Starling Marte and left his middle finger fractured. The injury left Marte unable to grip a bat or ball for nearly a month.
“We miss him tremendously,” Canha said Monday.
In his first season as a Met, Marte had looked well worth his four-year, $78 million contract. He had hit 16 homers and posted an .814 OPS. He led the team with 18 stolen bases. His combination of strength and speed, aided by an ability to control the strike zone in crucial moments, enlivened the Mets lineup. He might be the team’s best hitter against elite pitching. His absence only heightened the group’s weaknesses.
The Mets are far from a conglomeration of slap-hitters. The offense entered Tuesday’s games tied for eighth in baseball with a collective .409 slugging percentage. But the team stood 16th in home runs and tied for 14th in pitches per plate appearance. Rival scouts had noted the team tends to grind pitchers early in games — they led the sport in first-inning pitches per plate appearance, according to Baseball Savant — but grow less patient in later innings.
Marte mitigated some of those qualities. Every team deals with injuries, but to lose a player with his specific profile, at this specific juncture, was problematic. “He’s a pain in your ass because he fouls off pitches, works counts and has an idea of what he’s doing,” one rival pitching coach said.
Advertisement
On the day Marte went down, the Braves closed the gap in the East to a tie. The Mets reclaimed the lead by feasting on a steady stream of games against Pittsburgh and Miami. An opportunity to increase the lead arose when Atlanta lost a mid-September series in San Francisco — an opportunity bungled when the Mets offense stalled in a Citi Field sweep by the Cubs.
Even so, the Mets had earned the right to celebrate. On Sept. 19 in Milwaukee, the team punched its ticket into the playoffs for the first time since 2016. The players cracked beers and snapped selfies and, for whatever reason, doused Pete Alonso with ketchup and mustard. One thing they did not do was spray Champagne. They figured that the bubbly could wait until the division was secure.
“It’s smiles today,” Scherzer said. “But it’s grinding tomorrow.”
As Jacob deGrom served up rockets on a lovely Oakland day on Sept. 24, some scouts in the stands wondered what was wrong. He had missed the majority of the season with a persistent shoulder problem. Facing the woeful Athletics, deGrom operated without fastball command and scant control of his offspeed stuff. “I was just terrible,” deGrom said. “Just all-around unacceptable.” It was an alarming omen heading into one of the most meaningful series in franchise history.
Despite the pressure from Atlanta, despite the loss of Marte, the Mets embarked for Truist Park this past weekend in an enviable position. If the team could win once in three tries, the East was likely theirs. Showalter aligned his rotation so deGrom, Scherzer and Chris Bassitt would start. Before the series, FanGraphs rated the Mets’ chances of winning the division at 79.2 percent.
Twenty-seven innings later, those odds had fallen to 1.8 percent. On Friday, deGrom surrendered three solo homers. After the game, Showalter revealed he was dealing with a blister. His teammates could not dent Atlanta’s bullpen. In the ninth, Álvarez, a 20-year-old taking his fourth big-league at-bat, struck out with the bases loaded; at one point, he swung so hard against closer Kenley Jansen that the bat flew from his hands. (Álvarez and Vietnos looked “a little overmatched,” one scout said.) The final out was made by part-time outfielder Tyler Naquin, another deadline addition who has been a below-average hitter for the Mets.
It was the sort of spot that could have been filled by a player acquired at the deadline. Or, in a world where that Keller fastball veered a few inches in a different direction, by Marte. “They need a right-handed hitter so bad,” one rival evaluator said. “Losing him changed the whole dynamic of the lineup.”
Advertisement
A day later, Scherzer failed to finish the sixth inning for only the second time since his return in July. Swanson and Olson each took him deep. For the finale, Bassitt could not complete three innings. The pair of Swanson and Olson supplied two more homers. In contrast, the duo of Alonso and Francisco Lindor combined to hit 5-for-23 with zero extra-base hits and zero RBI.
“I just have to be better,” Lindor said.
“Tip your cap,” Alonso said. “They just flat-out beat us this weekend.”
They also offered a reminder of a key advantage Atlanta held. A year ago, the Braves won a World Series by relying on the simplest of October formulas: hitting the ball out of the ballpark. In what was essentially a playoff series, the Mets were outhomered by their rivals, 7-3.
It may be cruel to judge a player or a team or a season on the strength of one series. But the Braves played the Mets into that corner. The Mets could not play well enough to get out of it.
Just past 3 p.m. Monday, only 11 hours after the second-place flight landed at JFK, the atmosphere inside the Mets clubhouse was hushed. No music emanated from the speakers. The ping-pong table was unoccupied. So was the pool table. The loudest noises were the gentle thump of cubbies opening and closing as players dressed.
“Are we playing tonight?” catcher Tomas Nido said. “How’s the weather?”
Chris Bassitt looked up from his phone. “Lots of rain,” he said.
This only answered so much. “Are we playing?” Nido repeated. Bassitt shrugged.
The relievers straggled in. “Hey everyone,” Tommy Hunter declared to the assembled reporters. “I’m just here so I don’t get fined.” Joely Rodriguez sharpened a cue stick and racked a game of eight ball. Givens stepped up to face him. As the noise picked up, Alonso dueled deGrom in ping-pong.
The place, it became clear, was not a morgue. Showalter had just told the players not to report until later. After the debacle in Atlanta, the group needed some extra time to reset. Or just to sleep.
Advertisement
Showalter found himself torn between acknowledging the bitterness of the weekend and turning the page. If he was hoping for a boost from Marte, it was ill-founded. Marte was still hampered by discomfort in his broken finger when he attempted to swing a bat on Monday afternoon. The Mets would likely open the playoffs without him. “I can tell in Starling’s face he’s very frustrated by it,” Showalter said.
As a downpour soaked Citi Field, Showalter met with deGrom, Scherzer and Bassitt. All three are lined up for the Wild Card Series.
“They’re already moving on,” Showalter said. “They’re going to get a chance to not have their season end that way.”
A day later, after Monday’s rainout, the mood was livelier. The players shot pool and busted chops. Hunter, a boisterous fellow, harangued the taciturn deGrom on the merits of saying “you’re welcome” when someone says “thank you.” There were all the trappings of a team bound for October, a team nearing the end of a regular season worth savoring.
Even without Marte, the Mets profile as a tough out in October. The resumes of deGrom and Scherzer intimidate, even if their recent results suggest some vulnerability. The lineup lacks power but demonstrated its contact-based gumption on dozens of nights this summer. Rival managers consider Showalter a skilled tactician.
In another division, in another season, the Mets already would have celebrated a team like this one. After a 100-win season spoiled by their foremost rival, they must wait to spray champagne.
— The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal contributed to this report.
(Top photo of Pete Alonso: Larry Robinson / USA Today)
ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57km9scW9ganxzfJFrZmpoX2WCcLnErapmmqKWw6a%2FjKejZp2RqMFuuM6sq2g%3D