The Mets head to the All-Star break with their most losses in a quarter-century, but at least one piece of good news: The misery is actually more than halfway done.
The unofficial end to the Mets’ first half of the season provided a tidy recap of the 11-week free fall that buried the excitement of their franchise-best start (11-1), with the unreliable bullpen surrendering five runs, and the inept offense supplying just two hits through the first eight innings in Sunday’s 6-1 loss to the Nationals at Citi Field.
Though the Mets (39-55) have won half of their past 12 games, they have now gone 16 straight series without capturing one — the team’s longest streak since failing to win a franchise-worst 18 in a row in 1982 — contributing to their most first-half losses since dropping 60 before the 1993 All-Star break, and finishing with 103.
With 68 games remaining, the Mets need at least 24 wins to avoid their second 100-loss season since 1967. Over the past 48 games, the Mets have gone 14-34.
“That 11-1 start seems a long time from now,” Brandon Nimmo said. “We did have some injuries, and that definitely doesn’t help, but I think we also ran into some bad luck along the way in big situations, and those can sometimes snowball into bigger things. It was just a combination of a lot of things that got us to this point.
“I know everybody wants a winning season, but we’re gonna try and take what we can out of this, learn some lessons, and we’re gonna try and surprise some people in the second half.”
The Mets were in position to return with a modicum of momentum, and win three straight games for the first time in nearly a month, before reliever Anthony Swarzak ignited the latest implosion.
With the score tied in the seventh inning, Swarzak (0-2) walked the only two batters he faced. Two batters later, pinch-hitter Daniel Murphy — now batting a lifetime .381 against the Mets since joining the Nationals in 2016 — delivered a two-run single against his former team, sparking a five-run inning.
Mickey Callaway could have postponed using his bullpen for at least one more inning, but the manager opted to pull Corey Oswalt — who had thrown just 59 pitches, and retired the final 11 hitters he faced after allowing two base runners through five innings — for a pinch hitter with a runner on third, and two outs, in a 1-1 game. After Dominic Smith was hit by a pitch, Nimmo flied out with runners at the corners to end the rare threat.
“Really, it just came down to us trying to score some runs. In that inning we had a chance,” Callaway said. “Hits were hard to come by at that point, and we were doing everything we could to score a run there.”
The Mets wouldn’t record another hit until collecting three ninth-inning singles. But with the bases loaded, Amed Rosario popped out in foul territory to close out one of the most disappointing stretches in team history.
“We have to come out and play the game in a better way, fundamentally, situationally,” Callaway said. “One game we’ll score some runs and then we’ll not get it done with our bullpen, and other games we’ll get it done on the pitching side, and then not score runs. We haven’t synched up those three components of our game yet. And if we don’t, we’re gonna continue not to win.”