Once again the situation demands a big bounce-back by the Mets, and since that seems to be their specialty this season, they are surely not out of this NLCS just because they took a second pounding in three games from the Los Angeles Dodgers.
But I do think it’s time for Carlos Mendoza to shake up the lineup a bit after the Mets fell behind 2-1 in the series with Wednesday night’s 8-0 loss to the Dodgers at Citi Field.
The manager doesn’t seem so inclined, however. He said the slumping Francisco Alvarez, who had a brutal night in Game 3, will be in the lineup for Game 4, and resisted any notion to playing lefty-hitting Jeff McNeil and Jesse Winker by noting that Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto has been more effective against lefties than righthanded hitters this season.
“The guys that are in there got us to this point,” Mendoza said in the interview room, pointing toward the Mets’ clubhouse. “And I’m pretty confident that they’ll come through.
“We’re creating traffic and we haven’t been able to come up with the big hit. But I’ll continue to take my chances with my guys.”
Fair enough.
Certainly, Mendoza has demonstrated a good feel for his players, and he has mostly pushed the right buttons in this wild postseason.
He’s also right in that the Mets had plenty of chances to break through in Game 3, putting multiple runners on base in three of the first six innings.
Still, the bottom line is they have been shut out twice in three games by LA, and while Jack Flaherty looked the part in Game 1, Walker Buehler finessed his way through four shutout innings on Wednesday, using an assortment of off-speed pitches to keep the Mets off balance and get key outs with runners on base.
It just feels like the time to make a few changes.
The most obvious candidate is Alvarez, who struck out looking three times in Game 3 and appears completely lost at the plate.
Then there’s Jose Iglesias, whose clutch-hitting magic seems to have worn off.
And finally, you have to wonder about Brandon Nimmo, who managed an opposite-field single in Game 3 but continues to look compromised by the plantar fasciitis in his foot and is hitting only .225 this postseason.
Nimmo has had enough big hits during this run the Mets are on to deserve the benefit of the doubt, if he were healthy. But if the injury is affecting him then the team probably would be better off with someone else in left field.
That would make for a significant shake-up at this point in the season, but the Mets have the depth to justify it, as they could insert McNeil, Luis Torrens, and Harrison Bader.
In the case of Alvarez, it’s tricky because Game 4 starter Jose Quintana has made it clear he enjoys throwing to the young catcher and seems to respond to Alvarez’s take-charge nature behind the plate.
However, Torrens is considered a good receiver as well, and he had an excellent season throwing out base stealers. He didn’t hit much late in the season but at this point, it’s more about Alvarez looking practically non-competitive at the plate.
For the postseason, he’s hitting .143 (7-for-35), with 13 strikeouts, and it was the way he struck out Wednesday that was so noticeable. That is, he seems to be guessing so much that he couldn’t pull the trigger on a 3-2 fastball from Buehler in the second inning with the bases loaded and one out when even a sacrifice fly would have been important with the Mets trailing 2-0 at the time.
In the fourth inning, he struck out looking again, and again at a fastball from Buehler.
Finally, in the seventh, he struck out looking one more time, this time at an off-speed slider from Blake Treinen that was in the middle of the plate.
Of the swings he did take, meanwhile, he continues to be overly aggressive, with his front shoulder flying open as he seems to commit too early to the pitch.
All of that and Alvarez also made a bad decision defensively that opened the door to the Dodgers’ scoring, when he fielded a Teoscar Hernandez dribbler in front of the plate and threw to second, trying to get the force-out of Max Muncy at second.
A perfect throw may have just nipped Muncy but Alvarez had to rush and threw widely, off Iglesias’ glove. The smarter play would have been to take the out at first base, and the mistake cost the Mets, as the Dodgers went on to score two runs in the inning.
That’s hardly a reason to sit an aggressive young catcher like Alvarez; it’s more about him looking like he could desperately use a day off to clear his head regarding his offensive approach.
As for the others, Yamamoto’s splits are significant enough to have a heavy influence: lefties hit only .193 against him this season, mostly because his splitter is such a weapon, while righties hit .256 with a much higher OPS as well.
Ok, so that’s reason enough to stick with J.D. Martinez over Winker at DH, but I’d still give McNeil a shot as he’s just liable to get hot no matter who’s pitching.
If Nimmo is hurting, maybe it’s best to put McNeil in left. But I’d get him in there somewhere, and there is no lefty-righty issue with Torrens in for Alvarez.
Maybe Mendoza will change his mind after thinking about it overnight. If not, he deserves the benefit of the doubt. His team always seems to bounce back, after all.
But right now it feels like a change might help.
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