Centerfield

So they pulled Horton after 3 innings? Big break for us. Please bullpen. Hold a lead. Just tonight.

Wow! Did not expect to see this score after finishing dinner.

It was just a matter of time. Peterson was missing low all game. No mix of location. No bite on any of his pitches. Another guy whose performance was so poor you have no idea what to expect of him next year. Literally unpitchable.

This game is over.

I'm guessing we'll have a lot to say about this. And obviously the pitching was atrocious. But some intangibles from this year that are just maddening. **The Mets are 0-67 when trailing after 8 innings this year. They are the only team in MLB without a 9th inning comeback. League average is 3.35 wins. In 2024, they had 8 such wins. On the flip side, the Mets have lost 3 games in 2025 when leading after 8 innings. **The Mets are 2-13 in their last 15 one run games. They are 5-13 in one run games in the second half. **On three separate occasions, the Mets were batting with the bases loaded, one out, chance to walkoff the win. On May 23 against LA, Luis Torrens grounded into a DP. On Aug. 4 against Cleveland, Pete Alonso struck out. On September 21 against Washington, Brandon Nimmo struck out. The Mets lost all three of those games. **There have been 27 losing streaks in 2025 of 7 games or more. Other than the Mets, the only teams over .500 on this list are the Guardians, Rangers and Dodgers, who each appear one time. The Mets are on this list three times, with losing streaks of 7, 7 and 8 games. The bad part. I don't know how you fix any of these things.

Horton 1-2-3. Throwing strikes.

And that's why a misplay leads to two runs instead of 1.

Behind every hitter.

And now the Peterson part of the night.

Well that was fun!

Dreading this game. Baseball is supposed to be fun.

Frayed Knot wrote: Cade Horton (R/R) was the Cubs' 1st round/7th overall draft pick out of U Oklahoma in 2022 before making his ML debut in mid May Over his last 11 starts (starting on 7/20) he's allowed: 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 2, 0, 1, and 1 runs, pitching mostly between five and six innings and throwing 60-85 pitches So that's 5 runs on 31 hits over 58.1 innings. 15 walks vs 52 Ks In other words, we're not winning tonight. Of course he missed the Reds series.

My mindset for these last 6 is that the 2025 Mets have been given a shot at redemption. Effectively, they've already collapsed. If this were 2007, the Mets would have finished their season on Sunday. The Reds would have completed the sweep and celebrated, and the Mets would be cleaning out their lockers today. But since it's 2025, their fairy godmother swooped down and gave them one more week of baseball. The 2007 guys never got this chance. That's the good news. The rest of the news is all bad. Notwithstanding their last lifeline, I'm not high on their chances. They haven't won more than two games in a row since their sweep of Philly in August. They're terrible on the road. They're facing great pitching. And they're starting David Peterson, who has been terrible in the second half and getting worse. On the other hand, Cincinnati is home, on fire, and facing a terrible Pittsburgh team. So, in all likelihood, we'll see more of the same. But I guess our chances are higher than zero.

So what do you do if you're David Stearns? On the one hand, the offense was highly inconsistent. 11th overall in runs scored for 2025 is obviously disappointing. I think we were all hoping for a top 5 offense. They've come up small down the stretch (12 in runs scored in September), and mustered out only 5 runs this weekend against two of the worst pitchers in baseball. As documented many times, they're the only team in MLB to not have a 9th inning come from behind win. On the plus side, the Mets were 6th overall in OPS. They're second in all of MLB in hard hit rate, and third in barrel percentage. They're first by a wide margin in balls hit 95 MPH. 5th overall in HRs, despite playing at Citifield. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/statcast?type=batter-team&year=2025&position=&team=&min=q&sort=barrels_per_bip&sortDir=desc So maybe they were just unlucky? The Mets had two players in the top 10 in OPS (Soto and Alonso). Arizona was the only other team with 2 in the top ten. Three players (Soto, Alonso, Lindor) posted an .800+ OPS. Seven players posted a .750+ OPS. Baty was close with .743, and Vientos had a hot second half. If they re-sign Pete, the Mets could realistically have 8 players in their lineup post a .750+ OPS (Soto, Alonso, Lindor, Nimmo, Vientos, Baty, Alvarez, McNeil). Age might be a factor. McNeil will be 34, Alonso will be 31, Lindor is 32, Nimmo will be 33. Jett and Benge, you expect will be ready in 2026. Maybe Ryan Clifford too.

Yeah, I get that they didn't want to move Nimmo back to CF for the full season, but it's the last week, and we gotta do what we gotta do. Nimmo in CF. Baty and McNeil play every day. Mix in Marte and Mauricio. Taylor in for defense. I never want to see Mullins or Siri again.

Let's recap this homestand. 1. Friday, Sept. 12. Tong gives up 6 runs in the 1st. Can't escape the first inning. Mets lose to Rangers. 2. Saturday, Sept. 13. Baty gets picked off for the second time in a week in an obvious bunt situation. Catcher's interference leads to the tie. Lindor misses a soft line drive that leads to the loss. 3. Wednesday, Sept. 17. The Machado grand slam given up by an obviously ineffective David Peterson. 4. Friday, Sept. 19. Siri drops a fly ball, leads to two runs. Takes a bad route on another ball and turns a single into a triple. Comes up in a bunt situation, and has a pitch clock violation. Fouls off the next pitch, then strikes out. The Mets do manage to win this game. 5. Saturday, Sept. 20. The Soto error. The Alonso error. The McLean wild pitch, where everyone fell down. Nimmo strikes out with one out and the bases loaded. Acuna fails to advance the runner. Alvarez isn't bunting and grounds into a double play. Mullins isn't in "no doubles" and allows a fly ball to go over his head for an IPHR. 6. Sunday, Sept. 21. Juan Soto picked off. Another Lindor error, another Alonso error. The Mullins baserunning play. The Mets won the Siri game. The Tong outing happens. The grand slam sucks, but what can you do. The other three losses are inexcusable. Boneheaded mistakes. Bad fundamental baseball. And they came into this homestand having lost 6 in a row. I don't see how the coaching staff can survive.

Antoan Richardson is an interesting call. I agree he's done a great job with the stolen bases, but his actual base coaching has been atrocious. I don't know what he was doing on the Cedric Mullins play. If he wasn't imploring Mullins to keep running than he's just as guilty as Mullins. He did that a few times this year. The one I can remember was Soto getting doubled off in Atlanta with no guidance from Richardson. I still can't comprehend the Mullins baserunning. That might have been the stupidest play I've ever seen in my life. And this is coming in a weekend filled with incomprehensibly stupid baseball.

As for 2026 and beyond, this team has played so poorly for so long, I don't see how you can just run it back. Gwreck is right. There are a lot of individuals on this team that are talented, and still performed fairly well. If the Mets had made the playoffs and just fallen short in the post-season, it would have been fine to run the core of this team back there and call up Benge and Jett to fill out the roster. Ronny will hopefully continue to develop. But given the year they just had, and given that they're 11th overall in runs scored, I don't know what Stearns will do with this team. I don't see them adding Kyle Tucker. Maybe this is the year they have a shakeup trade. On the other hand, they were 6th overall in OPS. So maybe this was just bad luck? The big problem with this team was obviously the pitching. 17th in team ERA, and 24th in MLB after the AS Break. And that's with the infusion of McLean, Sproat and Tong. I think the comment about dead weight could refer to Manaea and Senga. Both terrible beyond any reasonable expectations this year. So bad that you wonder what you'll get out of them next year. Maybe to a lesser extent Peterson too. I guess the good news is that there is a clear, identifiable problem area that needs to be improved. The problem is there are no easy answers out there. The free agent options are all question marks. Cease has been terrible, Framber Valdez is a headcase, and Michael King has a thoracic nerve issue. One thing that is clear is that this coaching staff cannot return. Anyone responsible for getting this little production out of this group of players doesn't deserve to be back. Factor in the poor defense, the mental mistakes, and just lack of fundamental baseball. This team was not well prepared and never was it more evident than this weekend.

I still can't believe they lost the last two games. That's what I get for actually getting my hopes up. I really thought after the Tong win against the Padres that this team was set to go on a mini run to lock up the playoffs. One thing the 2025 Mets have taught us is that you should never, ever believe in this team. And I don't. The collapse is now complete. They're out of the playoffs. It's unthinkable that this team, with this much talent, can miss the playoffs with this format where everyone makes the post season. And I know it's not over yet. I know they only need to play one game better than Cincy, but not one part of me believes they will do that. I think there's a better chance they'll be out of it by the weekend.

They’re really gonna miss the playoffs aren’t they

Bad defense. Poor execution. Boneheaded baserunning. Bad in game philosophy. One of the most poorly coached teams I've ever seen. Not sure if it's the guys in the dugout or the analytics guys upstairs. But you cannot let whoever is running things to return.

I just watched the Mullins play. This team makes so many unforced errors. Why bother having base coaches if they're gonna have their heads up their ass. This entire coaching staff deserves to be replaced.

Win today. Root for Cubs. Live another day in playoff position.

What I meant is that our lead is effectively gone. The one game lead isn't a 1 game lead due to the tiebreaker. In essence, it's like having a half game lead. As long as we keep pace we in. If the Reds gain a game on us (over the course of the next 7). We're out.

I missed this game. But from the sound of it. The worst loss of the season. Our lead is effectively gone. If the Reds gain another game on us we're done.