Buck Showalter Messed Up Badly

We have been waiting all season for Pete Alonso and Francisco Lindor to start hitting. As we saw last season, when they hit, this is a completely different lineup.

Lindor got things going right away with an RBI double. With Alonso switching back to the old axe handle bat, he would have a two homer game. For a Mets team that had not scored in over 20 innings, the six runs felt like 30, and it was a game where the Mets pitching staff had to lock down the win.

The Mets would not win because their pitching staff was quite bad in the game. We probably shouldn’t have expected otherwise because they were very bad all series long.

David Peterson was handed a 1-0 lead before he threw a pitch. He would allow four runs in the second. Alonso hit his first homer of the game tying the game at four in the third. Alonso hit his second homer of the game in the fifth giving the Mets a 6-4 lead, and Peterson couldn’t handle that lead.

Peterson walked Yelich to start the inning, and Buck Showalter brought on Drew Smith. He had a bad inning culminating in Jesse Winker‘s game tying two RBI double. That was two leads the Mets handed their pitching staff, and the pitching staff gave the leads away.

Fortunately, John Curtiss would step up and give the Mets two much needed scoreless innings. Then, Showalter did something only Showalter could do. He used David Robertson for the bottom of the Milwaukee Brewers lineup and saved Adam Ottavino for the top of the lineup in the eighth.

Ottavino would face Garrett Mitchell to start the ninth, and Mitchell would end the game with a walk-off solo homer. To a certain extent, you have to wonder what exactly was Showalter thinking.

With a pinch hitter in Mitchell looming to start the ninth, the Brewers had three left-handed batters set to start the inning. After the pinch hitter, the switch hitting Willy Adames would hit from the left side followed by Yelich.

While you may want to say, well Ottavino was great last year, left-handed batters still hit .301/.358/.480 off of him last year. Left-handed batters hit .168/.293/.257 off of Robertson last year. It would be hard to believe this information has elluded Showalter, and yet, with full knowledge of the situation, he saved Ottavino to face the Brewers best left-handed batters.

Yes, the Mets offense did nothing aside from Alonso and Lindor. Peterson was bad, and Smith faltered. All of that said, the manager failed the team and set them up to fail. With the Mets playing the way they have in this series, they predictably failed.

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