The New York Mets were playing on Sunday night.  They were scheduled to play the Los Angeles Dodgers who are currently on a pace to win 115 games.  The question wasn’t whether the Mets would lose.  The question was whether the game would be competitive.

SPOILER ALERT: It wasn’t.

Shocking, I know.

Effectively speaking, this game was over in the first inning.  The shame of it was the Mets initially seemed to get out of that inning unscathed.  Travis d’Arnaud made a strong throw to beat Justin Turner at second.  However, that’s not what happened.  Upon review, Turner made a swim move avoiding the tag.  It would turn out to be one of the three stolen bases on the nigh against d’Arnaud and Steven Matz.

After the play, Matz would give up a walk and three hits giving the Dodgers a 3-0 lead.  It would have been 4-0 except Michael Conforto made a good throw from center to nail Austin Barnes at the plate.   It was a good block of the plate by d’Arnaud.

However, it didn’t matter much.  Hyun-jin Ryu dominated a Mets team that frankly looks disinterested right now.  Over seven innings, he allowed just one hit to d’Arnaud while striking out eight batters over seven innings.  That would be the Mets only hit in the game.

On the other side, Turner would hit a two run homer off Matz, and Josh Smoker would allow a two run shot of his own to Cody Bellinger.  Apparently, Terry Collins doesn’t have access to Baseball Reference because he continues to try to use Smoker to get tough left-handed batters out despite Smoker having reverse splits.

That’s at least better than whatever Matz is doing now.  His last six starts, including tonight, have been absolutely terrible.  His pitching 5.1 inning is a moral victory at this point.  There is something clearly wrong with him whether it is mechanical, mental, or like most of his career, physical.

Because he is now a member of the Mets bullpen, AJ Ramos had to give up a run to make it 8-0. 

In sum, the Mets lost another game to the Dodgers, and they got swept in the season series in which they were not competitive.  This is the first time there has been a season series sweep in this 55 year rivalry.  Isn’t that just the perfect allegory to the 2017 season?  The Dodgers reach new heights while the Mets are irrelevant.

Game Notes: Turner made his old team pay again going 2-4 with three runs, a homer, two RBI, and two stolen bases.  Jay Bruce and Neil Walker sat with some injury issues.  Walker would make a pinch hitting appearance.