Mets Hit Rock Bottom, Sunk By A Tragedy of Errors

Cubs 10, Mets 5 (Citi Field, Flushing, NY)

Mets Record: 34-46

Mets Streak: L5

Mets Last 10: 3-7

WP: Shohei Imanaga (5-6)

LP: Brooks Raley (2-2)

Seat On The Korner: Dansby Swanson

We select a Star of the Game and virtually invite him to take his Seat on the Korner — just as Ralph Kiner did on WOR-TV Channel 9 during the early days of the New York Mets.

Continuing the tradition of Rheingold Beer sponsoring Kiner’s Korner, this season every seat is proudly presented by The Main Event Restaurant & Sports Bar.

With locations in Plainview and Farmingdale, The Main Event features 80+ HD TVs, fresh daily seafood, and Black Angus certified steaks—so you never have to choose between great food and the big game.

Is there a record for consecutive appearances by an opposing player earning the Seat on the Korner? We could have mixed things up by giving the seat to Nico Horner and his three-double game but, hey, Dansby Swanson also got three hits and batted in four. So let's give him the seat and see if he can run his record to four Thursday night.

Need To Know:

• The Mets have lost five straight games after winning two straight, and have lost six straight against the Cubs.

• Francisco Lindor returned to the lineup after 55 days in the IL with a calf strain. He went 0-for-5, and looked overanxious at the plate in his first four at-bats. He finally made sold contact in his fifth, hitting a solid line drive right to Dansby Swanson at short to end the game.

• To make room for Lindor, the Mets DFA'd Zack Short. No surprise there.

• Luke Weaver, who pitched the seventh, continued his scoreless inning streak. He has not allowed a run over his last 19 appearances, totaling 21 innings, allowing 10 hits, four walks and has struck out 26 in that span.

• Huascar Brazoban also continued to shine. Coming in with nobody out and two on in the fourth, with the Cubs having just taken the lead, Brazoban struck out the side to stanch the bleeding and followed that with clean fifth. Brazoban hasn't allowed a run in his last six outings, and hasn't surrendered an earned run in 27 of 33 appearances this season.

• The series concludes Thursday night, with Freddy Peralta, fresh off his disastrous outing against he Phillies over the weekend, taking the ball for the Mets. Matthew Boyd comes off the IL to take the mound for the Cubs.

Turning Point:

In a game marked by six infield errors (see below), it was a play that should have been an error but which was ruled a hit that essentially broke the Mets' spirit. The Mets had just tied the game on a Mark Vientos homer in the bottom of the fifth and sent Brooks Raley to the mound for the sixth. Pedro Ramirez greeted Raley with a double to right, bringing up Dansby Swanson, who while playing with the Braves learned from Chipper Jones how to be a Met killer. Swanson hit a fly ball to right that Carson Benge should have had. Only it was Brett Baty in right, not Benge, who mystifyingly was playing left. Baty misplayed the ball into what became a Swanson triple, giving the Cubs a lead they never relinquished.

Three Keys:

A Performance Worth of A Little League Game

Let's face it, things have spiraled out of control, and tonight's game reached historic bad proportions. Six infield errors. A passed ball. A wild pitch. Cubs stealing bases without throws. How long had it been since all four Met infielders made an error in the same game? You have to go back to the team's inaugural season, 1962, the squad that wrote the book on ineptness. when Marv Throneberry, Rod Kanehl, Charley Neal and Felix Mantilla all erred in a September 9 game. You have to go back even further -- to 1901 -- to find a game in which a team had made six errors but hit four home runs. All in all, the Mets exhibited a playing-out-the-string vibe -- and the season isn't half over.

Time to check StubHub to see how much ticket prices plummet, because if the front office doesn't make changes, the Mets won't have to issue recommendations about taking public transportation to avoid parking problems. Unless things change quickly, Citi Field is about to become a lonely place.

Manaea's Struggles -- Not Entirely His Fault

This was not the Sean Manaea we saw his his previous two starts. He labored through his innings, with high pitch counts. Some of that was not his fault: A Francisco Lindor error on an easy ground ball -- the first one hit to him after spending almost two months on the IL -- extended the first. Unlike his recent appearances against other teams, Cubs batters found Manaea's sweeper hittable.

It all unraveled in the fourth, which started with Nico Hoerner doubling to center -- his second consecutive double. Marcus Semien threw wildly on a Carson Kelly ground ball. When Pedro Ramirez singled to right, scoring Hoerner, it seemed like the floodgates were about to open. Manaea threw a wild pitch, Dansby Swanson singled to left, scoring Kelley. And then came the play that seems only to befall teams going badly: With Pete Crow-Armstrong at bat, third baseman Bo Bichette moved in to protect against a potential squeeze bunt. Which is exactly what happened, only Crow-Armstrong bunted the ball in the air -- over the outstretched glove of a leaping Bichette to drive in Ramirez and give the kids a lead. That was it for Manaea. His line: Three innings, six hits, four runs (three earned) and 86 pitches. Not what the Mets needed.

Home Run Shohei -- No, Not That Shohei

Shohei Imanaga -- the other Shohei -- has been generally effective in his career with the Cubs with one big flaw: a tendency to give up home run balls. He's yielded 22 in 16 starts this year, including three in this game, by A.J. Ewing, Francisco Alvarez and Mark Vientos. The last one, Vientos', got the Mets back to a tie, and a subsequent one by Bo Bichette off of reliever Gavin Hollowell in the sixth brought the Mets back to within one. But the dingers most likely are a representation not of Mets bats finally coming alive but of the sorry state of the Cubs' pitching. We'll show Ewing's here, mostly because it is the first in his career against a left-handed hurler.