Excluding Saturday’s afternoon win in which Francisco Lindor drove in all five runs, the Mets scored just two runs in their three other games the last three days.
But following the Mets’ 6-2 loss in Saturday’s nightcap, Pete Alonso met with the media and explained that he’s not overly concerned about the offensive struggles of late.
“It’s a long season. There’s ebbs and flows with every year, and this is just one of them,” said Alonso, who went 1-for-3 in the loss. “I think this is just a couple of games where we’re getting to like the meat of the schedule, and right now that’s where we’re at. It’s just one of those highs and lows of the game of baseball where you go through certain stretches where the offense struggles, the pitching struggles, and you’re going to have to battle that.
“That’s baseball. This is a marathon, and yeah, the last couple of games… it’s just a little blip, but overall, we’re still in first place by I don’t know how many games, we’re eight games over .500, and we’ve been playing some really great baseball. Tomorrow’s a really good day to split the series and get back home.”
As Alonso pointed out, the Mets are eight games above .500 and 4.0 games ahead of the Phillies for first place.
And what’s even more incredible is that Mets have stayed in first place and maintained their division lead despite dealing with more than their fair share of injuries to key starters like Michael Conforto, Jeff McNeil, J.D. Davis, and Brandon Nimmo, just to name a few.
“It’s been tough not having everybody, but everybody who’s been in the lineup and on the field has done an absolutely tremendous job, and that’s not an easy thing to do for a team, especially not having all of their guys, so to speak,” Alonso said. “We’ve been warriors and we’ve been grinders. We’ve been able to win baseball games when our offense as a whole hasn’t really clicked yet. If you asked every single guy in the lineup, I don’t think that offensively, no one is really too happy with themselves right now. But overall, we’ve been able to scrap and win ballgames, and at the end of the day, that’s the most important thing.
“We’re trying to get to October and win a championship. … We’re trying to win a ring, and that’s the mentality.”