By this point, the clutch hits and situational magic of the Mets' first two rounds of the playoffs had largely faded.
By the time Jesse Winker stepped up to bat as a pinch hitter in the sixth inning on Thursday, the Mets' third and final chance to stop the bases loaded, strength had turned into glaring weakness.
And his innocuous flyout marked yet another wasted opportunity by the Mets with a runner in scoring position in a 10-2 loss to the Dodgers in Game 4 of the National League CS, marking the end of four games. Throughout the game, the Mets recorded 4 hits in 29 at-bats with runners on. On Thursday, he entered scoring position after 10 games without a hit.
The Mets produced a base runner for Los Angeles ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto. They once again had a chance to change the trajectory of the game, and perhaps the series, with one swing that changed the game and the series through an unexpected postseason development.
Rather, the Mets' season is threatened by sputtering in key areas.
“They have been executed, but we have not executed them yet,” Francisco Lindor said.
The Mets created traffic against Yamamoto in the third inning.
Francisco Alvarez took the lead with a timely hit, and the Mets ended up with one out and the bases loaded.
But Brandon Nimmo grounded out on a fielder's choice, narrowly beating the throw and preventing an inning-ending double play.
The next batter, Starling Marte, also failed to score the second point.
The issue of runners on base resurfaced three frames later.
He had a single, an infield hit, and a walk with no outs and the bases loaded.
After Jose Iglesias struck out, manager Carlos Mendoza used two left-handed options on the bench, but Jeff McNeil flew to center — deep enough for Nimmo to tag in and score. It wasn't — and Winker lofted the ball into the right-field seats, well short of the goal. His towering blast in Game 3 of the NLDS was admired for a few more seconds.
At that stage of the postseason, the Mets' ability to connect with timely hits remained part of their postseason identity.
He didn't hit a home run in the NL Wild Card Series until Pete Alonso made the season-save in Game 3.
But they went 5-for-7 with runners in scoring position to snatch the Game 1 victory and lay the foundation for Alonso's heroics two nights later.
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However, six of the Mets' nine points in the National League CS came from home runs.
Three of the four games ended with no hits despite putting runners in scoring position.
And he may only have nine at-bats left to find a solution.
“We're going to take the first game,” Nimmo said. “The rest of the time we put a lot of pressure on them, we just didn’t get that big of a hit and sometimes it happens and sometimes it runs.
“But sometimes you can hit a hard ball at someone and it doesn’t go well.”
