After another lifeless loss on Saturday against the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Mets held a team meeting to address the rather concerning elephant in the room.
“It just happened,” star shortstop Francisco Lindor said, adding that it began “organically” while the team sat in the visitors’ clubhouse at PNC Park.
“You know, collectively as a group, we decided to start talking to each other, and that’s what good teams do. We all rely on each other, we all bounce ideas from each other, and yeah, this is a big team thing.”
New York has hit a significant roadblock after cruising through the first two months of the season. Entering its series finale in Pittsburgh on Sunday, it had lost 12 of its last 15 games, which evaporated a once-comfortable lead atop the National League East.
To put it bluntly, nothing is clicking. The Mets’ pitching has been struggling amidst a rash of injuries that saw Kodai Senga, Tylor Megill, and Griffin Canning sidelined. They have allowed seven or more runs eight times in their last 14 games.
The bats have been equally as bad. In the last 13 games, they have scored two or fewer runs eight times.
“We’re not playing well,” outfielder Brandon Nimmo said. “We’ve won a couple games, but we haven’t been able to put it together. So [we] just put things out there, talk about it as a team, and move on. But it just felt like we weren’t really putting it together. So we ended up calling a team meeting.”
The Mets will hope that lightning can strike twice. After falling 11 games under .500 in early June last season, their fortunes reversed, and they mounted a run to the NLCS, falling just two wins shy of a pennant.
“That meeting last year was an open floor, too,” Nimmo said. “I feel like it’s similar. And it’s similar to other meetings I’ve had as well. This is not the first season that I’ve gone through a time like this.”
