Although not playing their best baseball, the Mets swept the “quadruple A” team in Oakland. Overall the series produced a mixed bag of emotions. The starting pitching was alright. The guy we worried most about, Carlos Carrasco only gave up 2 ER, on 5 innings of work (3 K’s). And the rookie Jose Butto really looked great today giving up 1 run in 5 innings and 2 K’s. Ironically the guy that had the most trouble was Kodai Senga, giving up 4 runs in his 4.2 innings of work, not something we are used to seeing at all. It definitely seemed like something was off that night with Senga, he couldn’t hit the strike zone consistently, striking out 7, however walking 4. Overall I’m not too concerned with that department Senga should bounce back, Jose Butto really showed us some promise out there, and Carrasco essentially bought himself another go around the rotation with the solid start. The bullpen looked real good too. Robertson continues to shine as the closer and Buck’s go-to guy. My worry after this series is still with the inconsistent offense.

At the end of the day a sweep is kind of what we expected, or at least hoped for, and we got just that. Games 2 and 3 weren’t pretty down the stretch, but ultimately they got the job done so the complaints will be kept to a minimum. So to summarize, I’m happy with the results, but I am concerned with the details. The Oakland Athletics are a fucking joke. Their pitching staff is brutal, and at the plate they’re almost as bad, outside of Tony Kemp, and Shea Langeliers these guys really don’t scare you. Now in all fairness Game 3 consisted of probably the best defensive baseball anyone has ever seen from a 3-13 team. The Mets really should have put up 7 or so runs today. They wasted a lot of opportunities at the plate with runners in scoring position (RISP). Against a team like Oakland you’ll more than likely have chances to score again later in the game, but against a team like the Dodgers, not as many chances will come up. If the Mets want to win the series in Los Angeles starting tomorrow, they need to capitalize with RISP. It’s honestly that simple. Come out and take advantage, when you have the pitcher on the ropes, you need to take advantage and strike hard. With the pitch clock being so influential so early on, it really seems like pitchers cant get much of a break in between at bats, making rallies more frequent and a bit easier to come by.

Game 1 will feature David Peterson vs Dustin May, Game 2 will be Tylor Megill vs Clayton Kershaw and Game 3 should hopefully give us Max Scherzer vs Noah Syndergaard. Max had some soreness he was dealing with Saturday so pushing him off to Wednesday makes sense, hopefully all is well by then and we don’t have to deal with an IL stint. Seeing Syndergaard finally pitch against the Mets should be pretty exciting, but it’s been 2 years now so I think a lot of that drama has pretty much subsided. The Mets need to find a way to keep their winning ways up and walk out of Los Angeles winning 2/3. The Dodgers aren’t off to their hottest start, sitting at a .500 record. With Brett Baty getting called up this morning hopefully Buck can have him start 2/3 of those games at the very least. We need to something of value offensively from our third baseman. Watching Escobar walk out to the plate and be an automatic out, killing rallies just hurts to watch. It doesn’t seem like he’s just going to get cut immediately, but I also don’t think he can stay here playing the way he is. We have seen Steve Cohen cut ties with players holding a salary more than double what Escobar makes. Only time will tell the future at 3B for the New York Mets, but for now, let’s keep the good times rolling and LFGM!