Last night, the Mets entered the bottom of the eighth inning with a 3-0 lead, and they were sending AJ Ramos to the mound to try to preserve the lead.  Now neither he, Jerry Blevins, or Jeurys Familia got the job done, and really they had no one but themselves to blame.

No, not even the defense, who did not come into play, but it could have.

Due to Jacob deGrom throwing a gem, the Mets didn’t need to go to their bench until the top of the eighth inning.  This meant the Mets still had Amed Rosario and Juan Lagares still available.  Even with some managers loath to do this, the defensively superior Tomas Nido was on the bench as well.

We would see none of them come into the game.

Maybe Lagares makes a much better play on the Johan Camargo ninth inning triple than Michael Conforto did.

Maybe with Rosario instead of Jose Reyes next to him, Todd Frazier is in a different spot to field the ball off of Kurt Suzuki‘s bat instead of his merely knocking it down.

Maybe Ender Inciarte thinks twice before laying down a bunt with the more athletic Nido behind the plate. More likely, Nido’s pitch framing helps both pitchers get those borderline calls, which may have been more of a difference than any of the aforementioned hypotheticals.

Really who knows what happens?

Here’s what we do know – the Mets are not FIELDING their best team in the late innings.

While it probably wasn’t an issue in last night’s loss, there will come a point in time where the Mets not putting their best fielders in a game will cost them a game. Really, Mickey Callaway has to be more cognizant of this team’s defense deficiencies and mitigate against it whenever possible.

While Callaway is out there making any one of his 15 pitching changes over the final few innings of a game, he needs to find an opportunity to get his best gloves on the field as well. There’s no good excuse why he doesn’t do that.