Notes on the Mets after Sunday's 5-4 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies...
A.J. Ewing feeling good at the plate
Ewing wasn't in the lineup with Philadelphia starting left-hander Jesus Luzardo, but was ready when his name was called upon to pinch-hit with one down in the sixth inning. Facing righty Chase Shugart, Ewing took a 0-1 sweeper and smacked it for a 382-foot game-tying two-run shot.
“Everybody in the lineup card has a role to play that day, whether they're in the starting nine or you're on the bench,” Ewing said. “And just staying prepared, staying into the game, the full nine innings.”
Ewing, who added a single in his three at-bats, said that being aggressive in counts is when he feels most comfortable at the plate.
"I feel like when I'm at my best, my at-bats end with one or two swings,” he said. “And I've been feeling more like myself recently."
In his last 14 games, Ewing has 16 hits in 47 at-bats (.340) with a 1.043 OPS as he has seven extra-base knocks and 12 RBI. And Sunday's homer, his third in that span and set up the Mets grabbing a lead after a CarsonBenge groundout later that same inning, was his first career pinch-hit hit.
“You just treat it like every other at-bat,” he said. “You’re getting prepared for it during the game a little bit, too.”
He added that the communication on that is “great” from the coaching staff in terms of who he might be facing and that gave him a “good idea” about when he might be entering.
Unfortunately, the lead was short-lived and, in the end, it was the Mets’ 15th one-run loss on the season, the most in the National League.
“That’s just baseball, it’s hard,” Ewing said of losing the lead after coming back from three down. “You just gotta show up tomorrow, we got three more in Toronto.”
RISP anything but crisp
Getting on base wasn’t the issue on Sunday, as the Mets had nine hits and eight walks. But the nine men in the starting lineup and three who came off the bench combined to go 2-for-16 with runners in scoring position and left 14 runners stranded.
Perhaps the most crucial and, for Mets fans, most painful instance came in the home half of the eighth when Orion Kerkering issued three walks to load the bases with one out, throwing eight straight out of the zone to do so. But Ronny Mauricio popped out on a 1-0 count and Francisco Alvarez went down swinging after getting ahead 1-0.
“I saw just misses,” interim manager Andy Green said about what he saw on the day.
“Saw a bunch of guys taking aggressive passes and just missing pitches,” Green continued. “Obviously, there's a whole ton of times we could have hopped back in front, that was a huge swing from AJ to do that for us off the bench; that's impressive. We just didn't bring guys home today.”
When asked if there were times when they asked hitters to be more patient, Green said there were “certain situations” when the Mets had the “take sign” on for players in the game.
“It's not every situation,” the interim skipper said. “There's times where you want aggression on pitches that you should be able to hit and handle. So, different points in time of the game state today, there were takes on for guys, and then at different points in time, they were turned loose. And we weren’t able to get it just right today.”
With the day's poor showing, the Mets are now batting .238 (ninth-lowest in baseball) with a .678 OPS (fourth-lowest) and 216 RBI (lowest) with RISP.
Francisco Lindor not an option
Green had four options on his bench today and used three of them. Lindor was the lone man left out of action, and Green said he was unavailable.
“He was tempting,” the manager said about the opportunities when he could have used Lindor off the bench, but “he had the day entirely.”
Lindor played in the first two games of the series, the first time he’s done back-to-back games since he was activated from the IL on Wednesday, after several weeks out due to a calf strain.
Lindor had two hits (a triple) with two RBI and a walk in his seven at-bats of the series.
