The New York Mets are in trouble. After Wednesday's 8-0 loss against the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Mets find themselves in a 2-1 hole in their best-of-seven National League Championship Series. Worse yet, they've now been shut out twice in three games against the Dodgers, opening themselves up to every manager's least favorite existential question: is it time to make some changes to the lineup?
Predictably, first-year skipper Carlos Mendoza was asked just that following the Game 3 loss. His response didn't sound like someone about to make alterations.
"We're facing [Yoshinobu] Yamamoto, as far as I know. I think they announced it. When you look at his numbers, his splits, he's reversed. He's been a lot better against lefties," Mendoza said during his post-game press conference. "I would anticipate our righties to be in the lineup tomorrow."
Mendoza was correct in his assertions about Yamamoto: he will start on Thursday, and he did fare better against lefties than righties during the regular season, allowing a .744 OPS with the platoon advantage versus a .526 mark without. Is that alone enough reason to keep "the righties" -- infielder Jose Iglesias and DH J.D. Martinez -- in the lineup over the unnamed lefties, Jeff McNeil and Jesse Winker? No, probably not.
Still, we're skeptical that Mendoza is working off just that information. These days, teams factor all kinds of additional information into their lineup-making processes, including release point and movement profile. There's also the unspoken matter of physical wellness. Mind you, Winker was dealing with back issues that sidelined him in advance of the postseason, and McNeil is just over a month removed from fracturing his wrist. That both are on the roster suggests they're above a certain threshold; the exactitude of their status, however, could be shaping Mendoza's calls.
We can't sit here and assert that Mendoza is right to stick with his righties; we don't know and, beyond that, whatever has Mendoza pointed in this direction is almost irrelevant from our perspective.
That's because, though you may hear the sounds of the encroaching reaper, that warning won't necessarily prepare you to fend him off. Or, put another way, the Mets' biggest issue isn't which pair of role players will take their cuts against Yamamoto; it's that their foundational players have failed to deliver in three games. To wit, Mark Vientos has a .692 OPS in this series that ranks as the second-highest among the seven Mets with nine-plus at-bats:
- Vientos, .692
- Starling Marte, .801
- Pete Alonso, .322
- Jose Iglesias, .606
- Francisco Lindor, .594
- Brandon Nimmo, .350
- Francisco Alvarez, .311
It's only three games. We're not going to deny ourselves by pretending there's predictive value in any of those numbers. There is descriptive value in them, nevertheless, and we feel confident writing that the biggest issue plaguing these Mets right now is the futility of their stars in this series, not the identity of their role players.
The Mets can't replace all the slumping bats in their lineup, and they can't undo the fact that they've been defeated by a 17-0 margin in Games 1 and 3. All they can do is hope that they start to wake up before it's too late.