Mets Player Performance Meter: Pitchers, August 11-17

So the good news is that there are some fireballs here. But the bad news is there are a whole lot of poop emojis too. The Mets blew a lot of leads this week. So many leads. And there isn’t really a single pitcher or even a couple of pitchers who you can blame. Many different pitchers blew leads this week. Giving up nine runs in an inning is something that shouldn’t happen to a major league team. But it happened to the Mets this week! And that was just one of the horrors the Mets’ pitching staff produced

this week. Nolan McLean’s major league debut on Saturday was truly a light in the darkness that is this meter.

Player	Last week	This week
Paul Blackburn, RHP
Edwin Díaz, RHP
Reed Garrett, RHP
Justin Hagenman, RHP
Ryan Helsley, RHP
Clay Holmes, RHP
Sean Manaea, LHP
Nolan McLean, RHP	—
Frankie Montas, RHP
David Peterson, RHP
Brooks Raley, LHP
Tyler Rogers, RHP
Kodai Senga, RHP
Gregory Soto, LHP
Ryne Stanek, RHP

We’ll start with Nolan McLean’s debut while I gather the strength to address [gestures at the rest of the meter]. Is a fireball for 5 1/3 scoreless innings perhaps being a little generous? Maybe. But also, I don’t care. Because the Mets needed that performance so badly and he delivered it. McLean was used his entire pitch mix effectively on Saturday, yielding just two hits in the outing. He did walk four batters, but two of those walks were to Cal Raleigh and it’s clear the Mets were understandably being careful with him. McLean struck out eight batters and carved his way through a very formidable Mariners lineup. Oh, and he also turned the coolest double play you’ve ever seen. A breath of fresh air!

Edwin Díaz helped ensure that McLean earned the win in his major league debut by making a rare two-inning appearance. He did give up a solo homer to Eugenio Suárez, but the Mets had enough insurance on the board that this did not impact the outcome of the game. Díaz struck out two in the outing. Díaz made just one other appearance this week in a non-save situation; he pitched a 1-2-3 ninth inning in Thursday’s game with the Mets down a run.

When McLean put the tying run on base on Saturday by walking Cal Raleigh to lead off the sixth, after he bounced back to strike out Julio Rodríguez looking, Carlos Mendoza turned to Gregory Soto to finish the inning and Soto did so, retiring the next two batters in order—Eugenio Suárez via the strikeout to end the inning. Soto came back out and pitched a scoreless seventh as well to earn his 22nd hold of the season, capping off a great week for him. Soto is one of the only Mets relievers who wasn’t involved in blowing a lead this week. Soto started off his week by earning a win with 1 1/3 scoreless innings in Tuesday’s game, which was dicey at the time he entered the game and only became a blowout later.

Justin Hagenman ended up earning a save on Tuesday for four scoreless innings of work—an absolutely heroic effort that saved the rest of the Mets’ bullpen. Hagenman didn’t give up a single hit in the outing and struck out five batters while walking only one. For that performance in a win the Mets desperately needed, he earns a fireball. Of course, Hagenman’s reward for this performance was being sent back down to Triple-A. And so it goes.

Clay Holmes, on the other hand, would have potentially joined the large poop emoji brigade this week for Tuesday’s outing if he didn’t pitch very well in yesterday’s game to rescue his week. The Mets got out to an early lead on Tuesday, but Holmes had the classic blowup inning that every Mets starter seems to have lately. This time it was in the fourth when the Braves put up a four spot on Holmes to tie the game. Luckily for Holmes, Soto stopped the bleeding and Hagenman held down the fort, allowing the Mets to open up another large lead. Yesterday’s game obviously went much better for Holmes. He earned the win in the Little League Classic for five strong innings, over which he gave up just one run on five hits. Holmes struck out four and walked one in the outing.

Nearly everyone had a redemption outing in yesterday’s game except Reed Garrett, who gave up a two-run homer to Cal Raleigh. That alone isn’t enough to earn Garrett poor marks for the week because the Mets still won the game and almost everyone is giving up home runs to Cal Raleigh this year. However, Garrett took the loss in Wednesday’s game for a much worse outing. Garrett was tasked with putting out the fire in the fourth inning on Wednesday and instead poured kerosene on the flames. All told, nine runs crossed the plate in that fourth inning for the Braves, erasing a sizeable lead for the Mets and turning it into a three-run deficit. Three of those runs were charged to Garrett, who gave up a backbreaking grand slam to Michael Harris that put the exclamation point on the pivotal inning.

The rest of the runs were charged to David Peterson, who also earns a poop emoji for the fourth inning meltdown. The inning began with the Mets enjoying a 6-0 lead. Peterson walked Sean Murphy to lead off the inning, allowed a single, then struck out a batter for the only out he would record in the inning. He then walked two more batters back-to-back to force in a run and allowed a bases-clearing double to Jurickson Profar to bring the Braves within two runs. But even with the bases empty, Peterson still couldn’t navigate his way out of the inning. He walked the next batter too and that was when Reed Garrett came in and the rest of the damage was done. It was a staggeringly bad performance from Peterson, who all told was charged with six runs in 3 1/3 innings.

Paul Blackburn, newly activated from the injured list, came in and soaked up the rest of the innings in Wednesday’s disastrous game. He gave up a two-run homer to Marcell Ozuna that put the game further out of reach, but he did pitch five innings in the end. Blackburn was designated for assignment when McLean was added to the roster on Saturday.

The Mets followed up Wednesday’s game with another fresh sort of disaster on Thursday. Kodai Senga started the game and pitched well, allowing two runs on five hits in 5 2/3 innings. He struck out seven and walked only one in the outing. The only real damage off him came in the form of a game-tying solo homer by Ozzie Albies in the fourth. But Senga got into trouble in the sixth and Tyler Rogers couldn’t get out of it. Albies struck again with a go-ahead RBI hit off Rogers, which scored an inherited runner from Senga. Rogers did bounce back to pitch a scoreless seventh as well after the Mets took the lead in the bottom of the sixth. Rogers also worked around two hits to cap off yesterday’s win with a scoreless ninth. But Rogers’ most damaging outing came on Friday night when he gave up a run in the sixth. He didn’t cough up the lead, but Friday’s game ended up being a game of very thin margins and that run proved meaningful.

Still, Ryan Helsley shoulders a greater portion of the blame for both Thursday and Friday night’s games and he earned the loss in both of them. The Mets took the lead back in the bottom of the sixth inning on Thursday and Helsley was tasked with protecting a one-run lead in the eighth and he failed to do so. With one out, he walked Marcell Ozuna and then gave up back-to-back doubles to Michael Harris and Ozzie Albies to blow the lead. The next day, the Mets gave up another crooked number that proved to be their downfall. Despite Rogers’ struggles in the sixth, the Mets still held a one-run lead in the seventh, but before you could even blink, that transformed into a four-run deficit. Helsley gave up a pair of doubles on either side of a strikeout to blow the lead and then was removed in favor of Brooks Raley, who much like Reed Garrett before him, made a bad situation worse. Raley allowed his inherited runner from Helsley to score and then three runs of his own. Like Helsley, Raley managed to record only one out before Ryne Stanek had to come in to get the final out of the inning. Stanek did so successfully and that was his only outing for the week. Raley somewhat redeemed himself with a scoreless sixth inning yesterday, but not enough to avoid the poop emoji. It’s the same story for Helsley. His scoreless eighth inning in yesterday’s game is not enough to outweigh two blown leads earlier in the week.

Sean Manaea started Friday’s game and was shaky early before finally settling in. He gave up four runs in the first three innings, but pitched a scoreless fourth and a scoreless fifth. He struck out seven batters and walked only one in the outing. The Mets countered by hitting Luis Castillo hard, but ultimately lost the battle of the bullpens due to the aforementioned blowup in the seventh, which they tried to come back from, but ultimately fell short.

Frankie Montas pitched the final two innings of Friday’s game after the disaster in the seventh and gave up an insurance run on a pair of doubles by Cal Raleigh and Julio Rodríguez. Unfortunately for the Mets, Montas hasn’t exactly looked good as a multi-inning reliever out of the bullpen either since making that transition, but he will likely get at least a little more rope before the Mets declare it a failed experiment.