The Mets’ offense has gotten off to a slow start this season.
Other than Pete Alonso, who has been their biggest catalyst to this point, New York hasn’t been able to get much going consistently and it’s mainly been carried by its dominant early-season pitching.
Francisco Lindor has shown some positive signs but he doesn’t look like himself. Juan Soto has been his usual on-base machine, but he isn’t hitting for much power. Brandon Nimmo is starting to turn things around, and Mark Vientos is struggling mightily.
This team has been generating a ton of opportunities, but it simply hasn’t been able to come up with that big hit when it’s needed it the most -- like it did so often during last year’s run to the NLCS.
That was again the case in Saturday afternoon’s loss to the Athletics.
Left-hander David Peterson threw well but he was outdone by former Mets prospect J.T. Ginn who limited them to just one run on four hits while walking two and striking out six across 5.1 innings of work.
“Man, he was really good,” Carlos Mendoza said. “He was effective. The movement on his pitches was unbelievable today. That sinker was really good then the cutter, nothing was straight -- everything was in to righties then away, same to lefties.
“He made some big pitches when he needed to. We created a little bit of traffic on the bases, but we couldn’t string together a rally. He was really, really good today.”
New York's lone tally came on a Nimmo homer and they left eight men on base, finishing an ugly 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position -- they have now scored three runs or fewer in nine of their 14 games this season.
For the year, they are an ugly 18-for-117 with runners in scoring position, and just 4-for-49 in such situations with two outs. Their team OPS of .647 (22nd) and batting average of .208 (26th) rank close to the league-worst.
While times are tough, the skipper remains confident that they’ll break through soon.
“We have too many good hitters in that lineup not to,” he said. “Right now, we have Pete being the one who is pretty much carrying us -- but the fact that we are creating traffic and we’re getting guy on-base, they’ll step up.
“I like Nimmo’s at-bat, Vientos is just not getting results but he continues to hit the ball hard and he’s not chasing which is a good sign -- like I said, one through nine, we have a good offense and they’ll come through.”
The hope is that it'll start in Sunday's series finale against old friend Luis Severino.