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What we learned as Christian Koss homer isn't enough in Giants' loss to Marlins originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

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SAN FRANCISCO — After a weekend of beautiful weather and a much-needed off day at home, the Giants returned to Oracle Park on Tuesday and immediately got reminded that June in San Francisco is a different animal. The first night against the Miami Marlins was one of the coldest of the season, and the bats went cold in a 4-2 loss. 

It was an extremely quiet offensive night, but Jung Hoo Lee drew a leadoff walk in the bottom of the ninth to bring the crowd back to life. After a Willy Adames strikeout, red-hot third baseman Casey Schmitt hit into a game-ending double play. 

Justin Verlander left with a 3-0 deficit, but the lower-leverage relievers did a nice job of keeping the game close. Spencer Bivens ran into trouble in the eighth inning of a two-run game when the Marlins got back-to-back no-out singles, but he struck out Kyle Stowers and Eric Wagamn before getting Liam Hicks to fly out to deep center. 

Joey Lucchesi put two on in the ninth, but got out of it. The lineup, however, never could catch up. 

The game was the first in a two-week stretch against some of MLB’s worst teams, one the Giants must take advantage of. Following this series, they visit the Chicago White Sox, who are 25-55. After a four-game series at Arizona, they’ll visit the Athletics for the first time in Sacramento. 

First Time Back

Verlander is just the third Giants pitcher — joining Ross Stripling and Slick Castleman (yes, Slick Castleman) — to go his first 11 starts without getting a win, and that continued Tuesday. The Marlins scored two in the second and one in the third, and while Verlander retired eight of the final nine he faced, the high early pitch count led to him departing after the top of the fifth. 

Verlander was charged with three earned in his return from the paternity list. He struck out five, but when the Marlins were rallying, he had some trouble putting them away with two strikes. Through a dozen starts, Verlander has a 4.52 ERA. If you take out his rookie season and the season he had Tommy John, Verlander has never won fewer than five games as a big leaguer, but he’ll head into the final days of June still looking for his first in orange and black. 

Second Chance

The Giants entered the night with just three homers in 250 at-bats from their second basemen, but Christian Koss smoked a breaking ball into the first row in the fifth, cutting the deficit to one. The homer was Koss’ second in the big leagues, joining the grand slam he hit on May 13. 

Koss and Brett Wisely will split time at second base for now, with Tyler Fitzgerald getting a mental reset in Triple-A and Schmitt needed at third base for at least a couple more weeks. Manager Bob Melvin went with the righty against righty Cal Quantrill because he has allowed an OPS over 1.000 to right-handed hitters this season, and it paid off. 

The Giants nearly tied the game later in the inning, but Matt Williams sent Rafael Devers home on an Heliot Ramos double and he was thrown out by 15 feet — with team RBI leader Wilmer Flores on deck. Devers has been dealing with some groin tightness and didn’t look all that comfortable after reaching the plate.

Still Searching

Lee had a 15 at-bat hitless streak going after a flyball to center in the second inning, but he caught a break the next time up. Teams have started to shift their shortstops over as far as they can because Lee hits so many grounders up the middle, and his hard grounder was headed for shortstop Otto Lopez’s glove when it hit Quantrill’s leg. Lee ended up with a single, his first hit since last Tuesday’s game against the Cleveland Guardians. 

Lee has been dropped in the order on this homestand, a reaction to what has become a lengthy slump, but he did reach base twice, something he had done just once in his previous eight starts.

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The Mets' current 1-9 stretch has had a lot to do with the struggles of the starting pitching, which has often put the team in deep holes early in games.

But lately, the struggles of the offense -- specifically the bottom four spots in the lineup -- have come to the forefront.

While the Mets are getting strong-to-elite production from the first five slots of the batting order (usually some combination of Francisco Lindor, Brandon Nimmo,Juan Soto,Pete Alonso, andJeff McNeil) the six-through-nine slots have been feeble.

Ronny Mauricio (60 OPS+), Jared Young (71 OPS+), Tyrone Taylor (78 OPS+), Luis Torrens (80 OPS+), and Brett Baty (90 OPS+) have left a lot to be desired -- perhaps coloring how the Mets will go about things at the trade deadline in just over a month.

"Any time you go through a stretch like this, it's added information," president of baseball operations David Stearnssaid on Tuesday at Citi Field. "And so we're learning about our team. We saw a lot of really good things through the first two-plus months of the season, and now we're seeing the flipside of that. I still think we have a really good team. I think we're certainly much better than we've played over these last 10 days, 12 days.

"But any time you go through a stretch, it forces you to evaluate the team. Take it in as information, add that to what we already know and help us plot forward. Does it expose any singular spot? I don't think so right now. But it does add to our information about our team, which at this time of year can be valuable."

While the aforementioned five players are struggling badly right now, it's likely that Mauricio will be demoted to Triple-A Syracuse when Mark Vientos returns -- potentially as soon as this Thursday or Friday.

Additionally, Young will likely see his at-bats dramatically reduced (or possibly lose his roster spot) once Jesse Winker is back. And Winker is expected to begin a rehab assignment before the end of the weekend.

That's part of the calculus as Stearns forms a plan for how to attack the deadline.

"We have some players who are getting healthy who I think will help there," he noted. "I also think the players who have struggled in our lineup over the last month largely are better offensive players than we've seen so far. They themselves have demonstrated that over periods of this season.

"Clearly this month, however you want to define it, our bottom half of the lineup has not produced in a way that's helping us score runs. This is a team game, and so it's really tough to rely on three or four or even five guys to carry the load every single night. We know that to be a really good offensive team -- we certainly have the potential and the aspiration to be a really good offensive team -- we need one through nine contributing more nights than not.

One of the pain points for the Mets has been third base, but it's possible Baty harnesses something or that Vientos plays a solid enough defensive third base to stabilize the hot corner.

Either way, it will be surprising if the Mets don't bolster the offense via trade between now and the July 31 deadline.

An obvious target would be Orioles center fielder Cedric Mullins, who is a pending free agent. But that would be contingent on Baltimore (currently 34-44 and in last place in the AL East) coming to the conclusion that their season isn't salvageable.

Similarly, a bunch of interesting names could be available if the Diamondbacks (40-38 but dealing with a season-ending injury to ace Corbin Burnes and a recent injury to MVP candidate Corbin Carroll) decide to sell.

Starting pitcher Merrill Kelly and third baseman/designated hitter Eugenio Suarez are both free agents at the end of the season, and would figure to be on the move if Arizona becomes a seller.

As Stearns explained, though, teams have been waiting longer than ever to chart a course.

"It's still really tough to tell," he said. "With our current playoff format, so many teams don't really decide how they're gonna approach the deadline until mid-July."

Stearns added: "Right now, I think it's very difficult to tell which teams are where. And we'll get more information as we go."

On the latest episode of The Mets Pod presented by Tri-State Cadillac, Connor Rogers and Joe DeMayo recap a terrible week for the Mets against the Braves and Phillies, while looking for light at the other end of the tunnel at Citi Field.

First up, the guys go through the team’s problems, including shaky starting pitching, lack of DH production, the revolving door at third base, the center field issue, and inconsistent scoring overall.

Later, Connor and Joe cover the Farm in all directions, including those moving down – Francisco Alvarez and Luisangel Acuña – and those moving up – Jacob Reimer, Carson Benge, and ColinHouck.

The show then wraps up by giving away Mets Pod hats and checking the Mailbag for questions answered about the current roster and the possibility of trading for Eugenio Suarez.

Be sure to subscribe to The Mets Pod at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The Mets are hopeful DH Jesse Winker will begin his rehab assignment by this weekend, manager Carlos Mendoza said Tuesday.

“He’ll continue to pretty much go through full workouts here,” the skipper said from Flushing ahead of the game against the Atlanta Braves. “The goal is hopefully he is DHing by the end of the weekend in a minor league rehab assignment.”

Winker has been on the IL since the first week of May with a strained right oblique, an injury that means the slugger will be 6-to-8 weeks out of action. Mendoza wouldn't say it will be a longer time for Winker’s rehab assignment, but didn’t anticipate it being a quick “couple of games” due to the nature of the injury and his time on the shelf.

“He’s gonna need at-bats, that’s for sure,” he said when asked about the duration of the assignment, adding that Winker will likely play Sunday before the minor league club has Monday off. “And then we’ll put together the plan for Tuesday, like one on, one off, and then back-to-back.. When we’re talking about that area, we’ll have to watch him closely.”

Winker, who sustained the injury making a throw from left field, could still be built up to contribute in the outfield, but that isn’t something the club is looking to do at this time.

“We haven’t got there yet, I think the biggest thing is his bat,” Mendoza said. “Even though we kinda prepare him for a scenario where we need him to play in the outfield, which we did, he still went down, so I think the priority here is get him at his best offensively, and then if we have to continue to the progression defensivelty, if we need to do it here at the big league level we’ll do it.”

Mendoza said they “have to prepare” Winker before playing him in the outfield again, but they aren’t shutting the door on using him in the field later this season.

“I didn’t have any hesitation with putting him in the outfield, because I felt good with the work that he was doing and we put him in a position, it’s just unfortunate that [the injury] happens,” the manager said. “If he gets active as DH, Antoan [Richardson] will continue to work with the trainers and put together a plan where he’s getting defensive work, throwing, and all that. 

“And if we feel like it gets to a point where we could give him a start there in the outfield, we will.”

Kodai Senga’s latest session 'went well'

Senga played catch on Monday and “everything went well,” Mendoza said. The manager said he had not yet spoken with the starter on Tuesday and that he was set to play catch again ahead of the game against Atlanta. 

On Monday, he noted that Senga had been throwing since the injury, and he was getting on the mound and “letting the ball go with some intensity.”

“That's a really good sign,” Mendoza said on Monday. “We'll see what the next step will be. But not even two weeks, and he's already getting on the mound and playing catch with intensity. That's good."