The New York Mets were shut out for the second straight night on Saturday, losing their series against the Seattle Mariners.
Host Ryan Finkelstein recaps the loss, and gives his case to fans for why there is no reason to lose faith in the New York Mets now.
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It's the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. While the New York Mets have endured a very tough road trip, this is no time to panic and hop off the bandwagon on today's show. I'll tell you why the Mets will get things back on track real soon. You are a Lockdown Mets, your daily New York Mets Podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Hello to all you amazing Mets fans, you're watching Lockdown. That's part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Thank you for making Lockdown Mets your first listen every day. Lockdown Mets is free and available on all platforms including YouTube. The Mets got shut out again in Seattle, I will recap that game in the first segment. That in the second segment, I want to talk about why Mets fans should not lose hope on this season. There's still a lot of baseball left and I think the Mets have some good baseball in them. I'll break all that down in the final segment. Before we get into any of it though, I'm your host Ryan Fickelstein, if you want to find any of my work. Follow me on X at Fickelstein Ryan, you'll also find some of my writing at justbasebo.com where I work as the managing editor. In the last two nights have been very frustrating to watch the Mets play baseball as they have not scored a run yet in this series against the Seattle Mariners. We knew coming in the Mariners had great starting pitching and we've seen that through these first two games. This lineup all of a sudden has gone completely silent after scoring nine runs just the other day on Thursday against the Colorado Rockies, but clearly that's a different ballpark to play in a much different pitching staff to go up against. The Mariners have just showed out so far and it can cause a little bit of a panic. I understand it. You're looking at a wildcard race where the Padres never seem to lose. The Diamondbacks aren't losing. You got the Braves. So you're in a tough competition with and the history between these two franchises would tell you even though things have been awful for the Braves lately, they're going to figure something out down the stretch and you might believe the Mets are going to be on the outside looking in when it comes to October. What I want to do today is put you on the therapy couch, take a step back and just appreciate the position the Mets are in right now and not give up on this season because of a couple of rough games. With that said, let's still talk about the rough game on Saturday because it was brutal to watch, especially if you stayed up late like I did and obviously now I'm doing a show after the game. But I know for a lot of you who wanted to watch the Mets game tonight, you had to wait up until 940 for the start and then in the first inning, the Mets are immediately in a 3-0 hole. Now also you have to credit the Mariners because top of the first inning, the Mets were on the verge potentially of starting a rally from Cisco indoor leadoff single Brandon Nemo strikes out. But J.D. Martinez hits a ball really sharp up the middle and instead of that ball going through, you have runners at first and third with one out, Pete Alonso coming up a chance to maybe get a run in to start the game and Logan Gilbert having to actually pitch some stressful, you know, at bats here in the first inning, Jorge Palanco makes a diving stop up the middle, glove toss, double play, and all of a sudden, eight pitches, Gilbert's back in the dugout. And that's just how the entire game unfolded from there. It was just a game where every break was going the Mariners way, every time the Mets hit the ball hard, end up in a Mariners glove, where they were making diving plays, they were catching in a line dry, I mean, just sometimes it doesn't work out for you. And when you have a pitcher as good as Logan Gilbert, who's pitching with the lead the whole game, it's going to be tough to win. And so while it was a really frustrating game, I don't take any sweeping declaration from it. I don't look at the Mets any differently after what they've gone through the last two days that I did when they finished off that series against the Rockies. I really don't. You look at this road trip, and we'll talk about it more in the next segment, but where the Mets screwed up was in Anaheim. Those are the winnable games against a team that's not very good that were close, one run games at the Mets failed to win. And had they won those two games in Anaheim, this road trip would already be a winning road trip. It'd be completely different. Instead, you're going to come off this road trip and the best the Mets could do at this point is a five and five road trip, which honestly would not be that bad considering the fact that they traveled to four cities in 10 days. But this is just what happens when you go up against a good baseball team. And every other team in the wildcard race, they're going to have their series at some point or another, where they're either going to be going up against each other or another really good baseball team. And the Mets will have their opportunities to get these games back. Now I will say, Sean and I was a disappointment tonight. There's no way around that. First inning, he gives up three doubles in a single three runs come across over the next two innings. He walked five batters. So through three, he had 85 pitches on the day and the Mets pulled them going to be really tough to win when your new supposed ace, as soon as I declare that I'm sorry guys, maybe I shouldn't have. I'll let's reverse. You know what, I was wrong about Sean Maniah, he's horrible and he should be off the team next year. I hope he doesn't come back because man, this guy just can't pitch big moment. He crumbles. So yeah, I bet you Sean Maniah is going to keep doing this and then we're winking. If you're not watching the video, yeah, he's just going to be the reason the Mets fall apart this season. We're going to completely ignore his two prior starts or he was lights out and largely the past couple of months where he's been pretty damn good and we're just going to look at this one game. It gets a lamp that's not great, but at the same time, you look at some of the guys that were hitting the ball hard off him, Justin Turner. We know what he's done in his career. You know, you see Randy or Rosarina a lineup that hasn't been great, but does have some hitters that you're not surprised when they come through against you. So, yeah, rough outing from Sean Maniah, but I'm not really aside from the reverse shinks of it all. I'm not taking anything from it. I think Maniah will be fine as next time out. It was just a tough start after a couple of brilliant ones sometimes. That's what happens. Law of averages, right? He was so incredibly good pitching over his head while he was due for a stinker to kind of get back to that median range, but I'm not concerned about Maniah over the final stretch of this season. And I will say one of the big positives I take from this game while the starting pitcher wasn't good and the lineup couldn't hit. The bullpen covered six innings very well and kept that game with, you know, in a striking distance where had the lineup come through, it couldn't got back into it. It didn't happen, but you do have to credit the bullpen that seems to be fine in their footing lately. You know, Huaskar, Brozaban give you two scoreless innings. He actually retired all six batters that he faced, branded him and made a great diving catch. He just made a good catch on a ball and foul territory, and then he got three strikeouts. So really strong middle relief from Brozaban. Reed Garrett came off the IEL, made his first appearance, and it looked like Reed Garrett from the start of the season. That was honestly the biggest takeaway I had from the entire game. To me, what Garrett did, that's the thing that I look at moving forward and think that's going to have a bearing on this season because the Mets might have their eighth inning guy back. Reed Garrett looked lights out, struck out the side, had that nasty bite back. Back to both this slider and his splitter, touch 98. I mean, that was early season Reed Garrett. And now that you have other arms in this bullpen, like a Brozaban, like a filmmaker, like a Danny Young, who all pitched in this game, well, now you don't have to throw Reed Garrett three out of every four nights and just kill this guy's arm. If they protect him, they give him the proper rest. I think this stuff is going to stay sharp and all of a sudden this bullpen is really starting to come together. And that was the Achilles heel for so long. So what the lineup gets back to doing what they had done for two months prior to this rough stretch, you get good enough starting pitching. And I think with Paul Blackburn, add into this mix, the rotation has been solidified to a point where you feel pretty comfortable that most days they're not going to beat you. They might not, or they're not going to be the reason you lose. They might not always be the reason you win, but can they keep you in games? I think so. There's a roadmap for this Mets team to be just fine and just breaking down the final bits of this game. You had Phil Mayton, who did have a little bit of a rough inning, but considering the fact that he walked one and gave up two hits, to have avoided a crooked number and only given up one run, still a pretty solid outing. And Danny Young looked really nasty again. He walked Dylan more to lead off the inning and then more stole second base. So he had a pitch with a runner on second the entire time, got a ground out and a couple of big strikeouts to avoid giving up a run. He lowered his ERA to 2.70. So there's a reason why the Mets kept Danny on this bullpen. And I think that this is a unit moving forward, that you're going to have a little bit more trust in. And that's a really encouraging sign for the road ahead. Now when it comes to the wildcard race, the Braves, the Giants, the Diamondbacks, and the Padres, they all won. So the Mets clearly lost some grounds tonight. The Cardinals are the only team that lost, it's in the mix. So the Mets still have their work cut out from, but they're half a game back in this wildcard race. Nothing has gotten away from them. Hopefully they can salvage a victory in this series on Sunday, get back home and get back to business. Talk about that more in just a minute. What's left in the season for the Mets and why should you be as locked in as you have back on this team and right on that bandwagon as the Mets make a push, hopefully, to get back into the playoffs. We'll talk about all that in just a minute. First though, quick word from our sponsors. Today's episode is brought to you by prize picks. Prize picks is the easiest and most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports. Unlike other apps on prize picks, it's just you against the numbers. All you do is pick more or less on two to six player stat projections. You watch the winnings roll it. 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So I'm not just completely giving the Mets a pass because of the travel schedule, but what I will say is this was a really tough test for this team and while they didn't necessarily pass it, if they win the game on Sunday, they didn't fail it either and they still kept their head above water. What you have to look at when it comes to the marathon that is the baseball season is there's going to be some months where you are a great team. There are going to be some months where you're a bad team and others where you're just right in the middle. The teams that make the playoffs, they avoid the bad months. They stack more of the great months, but particularly they stay with their head above water. That's what you got to do. Now you don't want to just say, oh, the Mets only have to play 500 baseball this month. They might be a little bit further out of the race if they do that and they might need an outstanding September to complete the job. But what they did is they erased a awful May with a great June and then they got themselves into the playoff mix by stacking that with a great July. Now it's up to them to make something out of August, but you look at some of these other teams in the race, the San Diego Padres, for example, they are riding their best wave right now. They've won seven in a row, 16 of their last 18. Are they going to maintain that for the next two weeks until the Mets come into town? And by the time the Mets roll through, are they going to be, you know, sitting at whatever would be, let's just add 14 games to it and say, well, let's call it a 30 game stretch. Are they going to go through a 30 game stretch and win 26 games and get back to first place in the NLS? It's possible they can win 10 of the next 12. They're a great team, but that would be indicating them as one of the NL powerhouses. And again, maybe they are in which case you tipped your hat. I think the Seattle Mariners are a much better team than what they've shown up to this point in the season. I think we've seen in this series what they're capable of. They have a great defense. They have, in my opinion, the best starting rotation in baseball and they have a good bullpen. So down the stretch, the Mariners might shake off what has been a rough stretch for them. Get back to the team. They were early in the season. That was 11 games over and they might even have a even better finish to their season to be out of team that has owned their division for a really long time in the Astros. We never know what the story is going to be by the end of the year, but this is a Mets team that has earned your attention through September and they deserve to be applauded for that because there was a point when Jorge Lopez launches love in the stands where we all thought that this season was going to be over by the middle of June, where all we would have had to look forward to was to trade that line and yeah, there's going to be autopsies on this season at the end of the Mets don't make the playoffs where some fans are going to say, see, you shouldn't have won because you could have traded some pieces and made the farm system better. And to those fans, I would say, well, enjoy staying miserable because that is just an attitude that isn't very fan-like in my opinion. I think a fan should be pulling for their team. And yes, you watch 19 consecutive innings where the Mets don't score a run. It's tough to be a fan that's having a good time going through that, but that doesn't mean you should just say, oh, yeah, the Mets aren't done. They're out of it. It's over. They're a half game out of the playoff mix with 46 games left to play and they just went through with one game left here, what is the worst travel schedule road trip of their season. From this point on, it gets a lot easier. They have three more road trips. Now their next one very well could decide their fate because they're going to go against two teams who have been absolutely rolling, potentially the two hottest teams in baseball, certainly the two hottest teams in the National League. And that is the Padres and the Diamondbacks, but the difference between that series and the one that Mets have just gone through here is they're going to have nine games at home going up against the A's, the Marlins, and then the Orioles. So the last series is going to be the toughest one there, but the Mets are 17 and 7 at home since the London series. So they've been playing really good baseball at Cityfield. If they do that, start riding a better wave, go into San Diego for four. Maybe the Padres have been winning so much that they'll be due for a slide. Maybe you surprise them in winning series. You then get an off day though between the Padres series and then the series against the Arizona Diamondbacks, which is a three game set. And then you go to Chicago to play the worst team in baseball and the White Sox. So that 10 game road trip, in my opinion, while you play two tougher teams than what the Mets have gone through here, it's still an easier road trip because you still have an off day. And while the Padres and the Diamondbacks have been as good as can be, I still look at those teams and think that there's some better matches to be had for what the Mets do well. What the Mets do well is hit, but it's tough to hit when you're facing the pitching that the Mariners have been rolling out the last couple of days. Do the Padres have some good pitching in their bullpen? Absolutely. Is Dylan Cease an absolute dog in their rotation? But to the Padres have some pitchers the Mets can get on top of and score some runs early. I think so and same thing with the Diamondbacks and ultimately if they go through that road trip and it's brutal, well, then I won't be as judgmental if you're hopping off the bandwagon because I'm sure at that point the race would have gotten away from the Mets a little bit. I guess my point right now is the race is still right within the Mets grass. If you told us at any point in June, even when things are going great, that we'd be sitting here August 11th, the Mets would be half a game out of a playoffs, but anybody would have taken that anyone. And so we'll see how the rest of this season shakes out, but you have that road trip after this home stand, another home stand, then your second or last road trip is three in Toronto against a Blue Jays team that's not playing good baseball an off day in a three and Philly and then your final road trip of the season is going to be Braves Brewers to close things out. Now in my eyes, if the Mets make it to that road trip in contention, if it comes down to Mets and Braves and they're within a game of Atlanta or two games of Atlanta going into that series where if they win that series, they'll be either within the driver's seat or close to it and they are playing competitive baseball to the very end of September. This is a great season for the Mets. It is because they have endured a lot and they have taken what was an embarrassment of a 2022 season, excuse me, cheese, doesn't time fly, man, I just can't get my head around the fact that we're almost in 2025. I still feel like last year was 22. They have shaken off the embarrassment of 2023 and put some more respect back into the standing of this organization moving forward and that is huge when you go into free agency with the likes of Corbin Burns and Juan Soto available where the Mets could use their money to get a big fish and make this team a lot better for next season. 2025 was always the year that you would think a championship window could start to open. And while adding to the farm system would have helped 25, 26, 27, and 28, I don't think that the farm system getting a lift this year is more important than what this team has done, which is learn how to win again. And so hopefully the habits that they have picked out this year will continue and they will make the playoffs, but even if they don't, I'm proud to be a Mets fan right now considering what they've done this season. And I am looking forward to this stretch run because we have a stretch run. We're not watching Jonathan Arruz play every single day. Like we were last year. The only thing to watch was man, DJ Stewart kind of good, huh? That's what our August and September was last year watching DJ Stewart. And then we were all graced with the presence of Ronnie Mauricio for a month. This is a lot more fun to me that I will say the lineup has to pick it up and Brandon who took some accountability, I didn't want to mention that he owned his struggles. And so he has to get better and there's something about taking that accountability to the media that sometimes can take a little bit of the pressure off to just say it into a camera. I suck right now. And maybe he'll turn a corner. I think JD Martinez has had much better at bats lately. So I think he's about to pop Pino Lonzo has done better on this road trip. There's still some bad at bat, but that's going to come with the territory. If the Mets top four hitters can figure things out if their bullpen can hold up from what we've seen lately and by the way, Daniel Nunez is going to throw a bullpen coming up in the next few days here. I think they said either it's on either it's on Sunday or Monday's and I throw a bullpen. So Nunez could come back soon and all of a sudden you'll have Diaz Garrett, Nunez, maybe it's bras, a bond, made tons. I mean, the bullpen could actually be a strength on the stretch. If you get enough in this rotation, this Mets team can absolutely attack the final 46 games of the season, 23 on the road, 23 at home, and they can make the playoffs. So don't jump off the bandwagon just yet. Anyway, that's going to be all for today's edition, blocked on Mets on tomorrow's show. Of course, I'll break down whatever happens in the final game of this series against the Mariners. We'll talk about the homestand coming up. Like that's a lot of good stuff. So my throw a little prospect stuff and a lot to cover tomorrow. Make sure you're listening on the audio side. You follow, rate and review wherever you get your podcasts. You're watching on YouTube. Do me a favor, hit that subscribe button, trying to get to 10,000 subs by the end of the season. It's a tall task. I appreciate all of you who continue to subscribe to get us closer and closer to it. If you want to follow me on next, you can do so at Finkelstein Ryan, follow the show at locked on Mets. Thank you for making lockdown match your first listen or your first watch every day. And for your second watch, check out the first ever 24/7 streaming channel on YouTube that covers everything in the world of sports, talking about locked on sports today, which again, streams 24/7 on YouTube and on Amazon Fire TV. This episode is brought to you by Game Time. Game Time is an authorized ticket marketplace of Major League Baseball, which makes getting tickets faster and easier. 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