Looking at the Mets’ recent offensive struggles, it’s hard not pointing directly at the bottom of the order.
When this group was clicking, they were arguably one of the deepest lineups in all of baseball.
Of late, though, they’ve become too reliant on the big boppers at the top coming through with the big knocks.
That was again the case on Monday night against Atlanta’s Spencer Schwellenbach.
Juan Soto accounted for New York’s lone runs — crushing a two-run homer the other way with two outs in the bottom of the sixth to break up the young right-hander’s shutout bid and make it a one-run ballgame.
Other than that, the Mets managed just five hits on the night.
Two of them came from Francisco Lindor, one from Brandon Nimmo, and the other two from Brett Baty as he lifted his average to an impressive .538 in five games out of the nine spot in the order this season.
Other than that, the four through eight spots in the Mets’ lineup went a combined 0-for-18 with five strikeouts on the night as they dropped their ninth in their last 10 games.
They’ve averaged just three runs over that stretch, even with the 11-run outburst on Saturday in Philadelphia.
“We have a lot of guys on the bottom going through it,” Carlos Mendoza said. “We’re relying pretty much on the top four or five guys and then those guys on the bottom are not able to get on base, that’s why we’re having a hard time scoring runs right now.
“We were talking about when we were playing well how good our lineup was — right now we have a few guys that are struggling.”
The youngsters have’t been as consistent as hoped. Jeff McNeil has slowed down mightily after his hot start. Tyrone Taylor continues to play stellar defense, but his bat has cooled off as well, and the same can be said for newly appointed starting catcher Luis Torrens.
Jared Young also has just six knocks since being called-up from Syracuse, but he continues to see regular at-bats as the DH.
Something needs to change in a hurry — luckily a big reinforcement in on the way, as Mark Vientos will play two more rehab games with Syracuse this week and he could be back in the lineup as soon as Thursday.
That’s just one addition, though, the rest of this group has to get things turned around quickly.
“We need to continue to support the guys and continue to work,” the skipper said. “But you know this game is all about results, so we continue to have all the confidence in these guys, but we have to be better.”
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