This felt like the Mets’ lowest moment of the 2024 season so far, but the Mets started the season without a win in five games.
Because it started from a very high point. Christian Scott wears silver headphones and bounces youthfully and mindlessly to a rap mix at his locker. It started with excitement for his first Citi Field start, and the power and dominance of his first two innings only fueled the imagination.
This drew loud applause from the home crowd.
And the Mets ended up with almost no hits against Max Fried and others. The result was 4-1, which was their 12th loss in their last 18 games. The game ended with the Braves giving us a big reminder, as they seem to do every year, that the Mets are not in their class.
This led to relentless booing over the final three frames.
Scott was acquitted on more than six occasions. He has a real fastball and the confidence to never give up, and someday that could be part of the equation for the Mets to beat Atlanta. However, today is different. He probably won’t make it in 2024. Once again.
The Mets kind of knew this season was going to go like this. They played the long game, refusing to compromise their future payroll or roster while insisting they were good enough to make the playoffs.
After one quarter of this year, they are seven games behind Atlanta and nine games behind the Phillies, the two teams with the best records in the National League. The two clubs, along with the Dodgers, form the league’s superpowers. Considering the playoffs, the Mets are not a member of the National League East this year. They work with every team that finishes second to the Dodgers in the NL West, as well as the non-district championship team in the NL Central.
So far, the 18- to 20-year-olds have been surprisingly mediocre. They scored 164 points and conceded the same. They’re in the wild-card hunt because there are a ton of clubs like this behind the National League’s superpowers.
“We’ve got one team right now that can look very good at one point and not so good at one point, depending on the quality of the start and how well the offense is doing that week. “I have one,” said Adam Ottavino. “We’ve had some really good games in both areas and other times we haven’t. I think we’re in the right spot record-wise based on how we’ve played so far.”
The Mets were breaking even until the Braves won the first two of seven straight games against Atlanta and Philadelphia, but this season could take a turn for the worse. Jose Quintana couldn’t contain the Braves’ power Friday night. On Saturday, the Mets couldn’t solve Fried, who pitched a no-hitter in the seventh inning. There were a few walks and some hard-hit balls, but with two outs in the 9th inning, J.D. Martinez hit his first home run off Raisel Iglesias, allowing the Mets to hit and become the victim of their first no-hitter. avoided. Braves 30 years later.
During a pregame session with reporters in the press conference room at Citi Field ahead of Saturday’s game, Mendoza watched himself as a muted television nearby played a replay of the previous night’s top of the third inning. We talked at the table. That was when the Braves hit three home runs to four batters against Quintana.
The gist of Mendoza’s press conference was about two pitchers, Kodai Chiga and Scott. These two pitchers may not help the Mets’ near-impossible chance of overtaking the Phillies and Braves in 2024, but they have important implications for whether the Mets can actually win. . You need 80-odd wins to earn a wild card.
In the most ideal version, Scott proves to be the real deal, Chiga returns to the rotation within a month in similar fashion to the second half of last season, and Luis Severino stays healthy and improves his current form. He would retain and provide the Mets with a big rotation trio. However, Mendoza sounded vague and perhaps a little bewildered about Chiga delaying his shoulder rehabilitation because he is physically unwell.
But Scott was encouraging. He went 1-2-3 on his first nine pitches, with four whiffs and a whiff. But after two scoreless games, including his third strikeout of the game, Scott ended his 0-for-29 streak with a single to Michael Harris II, and a 2-0 fastball to Orlando Arcia for a two-run homer. It sank. Harris added an RBI in the fourth inning. Scott responded by retiring the next seven batters, then walked and singled to lead off the seventh.
Scott made two starts in the major leagues, recording 14 strikeouts (only Matt Harvey, with 18 strikeouts, had more strikeouts for the Mets in his first two starts). He doesn’t seem overwhelmed. The blurb about him is that he’s grade A in both sweeper and swagger, and so far both are evident. The loss to the Braves, a familiar symptom for Mets pitchers for years, didn’t stop.
But the Mets can’t imagine themselves being in the Braves’ division or class in 2024. The same goes for the Phillies. They’re at the top of the next level and trying to find their way to the playoffs, where a short series could bring a surprise. It’s even harder to see how they get there unless Scott’s first two starts bode well for what he can offer in the remaining games.
