Mets return to messy ways in matinee loss to White Sox
Pete Alonso #20 of the Mets reacts during the sixth inning against the Chicago White Sox at Citi Field on Thursday, July 20, 2023. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Often over the course of this difficult season, you’ll hear Buck Showalter or one of his players say that eventually, guys will seek their level.
In the early going, it was a comforting concept — the idea that a team so similar to the one that won 101 games last year was capable of performing like that again.
But on days like Thursday — a messy 6-2 loss to the White Sox that felt typical of this year’s Mets — it takes on a different flavor.
Sure, the Mets have had a good July thus far, and yes, they’ve benefited from some markedly improved starting pitching, but they can still lose by seeking their 2023 level: a few key injuries, sloppy defense, dormant bats and a porous bullpen.
Pete Alonso’s error and Drew Smith’s pitching led to four runs in the sixth inning, and every Mets player not named Omar Narvaez did a whole lot of nothing against White Sox starter Michael Kopech.
“Caring and wanting something is a double-edged sword,” said Alonso, who’s hitting .093 over his last 12 games and has visibly taken on the burden of an underperforming team. “Obviously, if you care too much, then it leads to mounting pressure and that’s not necessarily good. I mean, [the band] 38 Special said it best: You’ve got to hold on loose. If you hold on tight, you lose control.”
That’s not exclusive to Alonso in a Mets season where little has gone right.
On the same day the Mets placed Starling Marte on the 10-day injured list because of recurring migraines, Tommy Pham — one of their most productive hitters and most intriguing trade chips — had to be taken out of the game after trying to leg out a grounder and coming up lame in the third.
All of it combined to put a damper on an otherwise promising start by Jose Quintana in his long-awaited 2023 debut — a performance where he started off rocky but appeared to get stronger and more confident as the afternoon went on. It was also a disappointing end to a three-game winning streak, the Mets’ first solid stretch in a while; as it stands, they’re 9-5 in July.
Quintana allowed two runs over the first two innings, on Eloy Jimenez’s RBI single in the first and Elvin Andrus’ sacrifice fly in the second, but then gave up just two hits over the next 3 1/3.
The starter, who signed a two-year deal but began the season on the injured list with a left rib fracture, went five innings, giving up the two runs on six hits, with no walks and three strikeouts over 77 pitches.
It wasn’t nearly enough.
Narvaez’s fifth-inning solo homer, his first as a Met, was the only run the Mets scored against Kopech. The rest of the team, meanwhile, followed the bleak blueprint of this season with shoddy defense and an overmatched bullpen.
First, the error: Alonso muffed a routine grounder by Luis Robert Jr. to kick off the sixth, opening the gates for Smith’s unraveling.
Smith allowed a single to Jimenez and walked Jake Burger to load the bases, bringing up Yasmani Grandal, who lasered a line-drive double over Jeff McNeil’s head in right to plate two. One batter later, Oscar Colas hit a long sacrifice fly to left to make it 6-1.
“He capped it,” Alonso said of his error. “It had a really tough spin. I didn’t know whether to charge it or not and eventually, as an infielder, you have to make a decision to retreat or go for the ball and I did neither.”
As for Smith, who came into the day with a 6.75 ERA over the last 18 games, "he’s just missing across the plate," Showalter said. "The breaking ball has been inconsistent . . . It just hasn’t been there for him."
Alonso did get a run back in the eighth, lining an RBI single to score Brandon Nimmo to provide the final margin. Afterward, Alonso went through the motions of looking at the bright side, but it’s clear he felt the onus of another loss.
“We all know how much Pete wants things,” Showalter said. “He has put so much emphasis when he’s not hitting. Pete is just trying to contribute and what happens is you just get out of sync.”
It’s not the level Alonso is used to playing at. It’s not the level anyone expected the Mets to fall to. But right now, this is the reality: It’s the level they’ve earned.
Laura Albanese is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. She's been covering MLB since 2014 after starting at Newsday as an intern seven years earlier.
