The New York Yankees coming off a dramatic victory, hoping that sparks them as they take on the Astros and the Mets are up in Milwaukee taking on the brewers after what was, I mean, just be honest, a disastrous homestine.

Losing two out of three to the reloading giants who traded away half their bullpen and then getting swept by the Cleveland Guardians.

Here's my feeling on the Mets.

And I don't think I'm being reactionary or over the top because I do understand that

162 is a long season.

And I try to keep in perspective that you are never as bad as you are when you're struggling

and you're never as good as you are when you're hot.

I acknowledge that.

What is really concerned me about the

Mets' recent struggle is that they have mostly played mediocre baseball for three months.

They had the seven-game winning streak, which was great. I enjoyed it. But if you look at the

sample size going all the way back to late April after they swept Philadelphia, they are a 500 team.

If you want to go back to mid-June, the series against Tampa Bay, they are an under-500 team. They have not played well for a while. Now, I don't throw anything back. Their great start has helped them. Their great start is the reason they're in a playoff spot. Their great start is why they're only two and a half games back. But let's look deeper at this whole thing. Their bullpen has a chance to be awesome. I'm not even worried about their rotation. I think Kodi Sango will be fine. Tonight will certainly be a test for him. Definitely. But I do believe it's kind of just a mechanical issue. And Kodi Senga, for the most part, during his major league career, has been better than good. Shaw Mania had one bad inning. David Peterson has been a constant, and look, Clay Holmes, if you treat him what he should be treated like as a five-inning pitcher, I think he'll be fine. I also believe that sooner rather than later, Brandon Sprode and Nolan McClainer are going to get a chance at the major league level. I'm not concerned about the pitching.

What I'm concerned about is that their offense has been a below average offense all year. That's not an opinion. That's a fact. That's what they've been. Now, we could try to figure out why, and we can kind of blame different people lately. A lot of the blame is on the bigger stars. But if you look deeper, it's more than that. They're getting no production from Catcher.

They've got no production out of third base.

They've gotten zero production out of center field. Like, it's more than just the stars are underperforming because, yeah, I think Juan Soto will eventually hit with guys on base. No, but you can't have a 30-year lineup besides the stars being net nothing. And that's what they've been over the majority of the season. 30-year-line is a big chunk. And they're not scoring runs. And they haven't scored runs all year. Like when they played well in April, they did it because of their pitching. So my concern level for the Mets is that this offense is just not as good as we thought it would be. And I'm not convinced that's changing. Which is where the pitching, though, does come in for me to be an issue because, look, baseball's

changed and the postseason's changed.

And we've seen this for a long time where even really great rotations, they're not

allowing guys to go seven innings or whatnot.

But, man, when you're not scoring runs and you struggle and maybe you struggle versus great pitching, you need a couple guys out there where you can escape one nothing, two. Something like that, you cannot have three runs or more given up by a starting pitcher. But hold on. I want to give you an example of a specific game that really bothered me. Three days ago. Was it three days ago now? I'm losing the track of the days.

Yes.

Just give me the pitcher. Clay Holmes. Oh, the Holmes game. Okay. Clay Holmes went five innings allowed two runs. Carlos Mendoza, rightfully so, pulled him after five, 75 pitches. He needed four innings out of his bullpen. One reliever, Tyler Rogers, gave up a cheap run. It happens.

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