Mets drop 5th in a row, quest for higher draft choice continues

Orioles 7 Mets 3 (Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Baltimore, MD)

Mets record: 50-60

Mets streak: Lost 5

WP - Kyle Gibson (11-6)

LP - Tylor Megill (6-5)

Seat on the Korner:

We select the star of the game and virtually invite him to a Seat on the Korner, just as Ralph Kiner used to do for his studio postgame show on WOR-channel 9 broadcasts in the early decades of the Mets.

Gunnar Henderson and Anthony Santander bookended Tylor Megill's return to the Mets rotation with home runs. Henderson made the score 2-0 with a homer two batters into the game, and Santander homered in the fifth just before Megill was pulled to make it 5-2 and put the game away.

Need to Know

• The Mets are now 0-5 since the trade deadline.

• Tylor Megill returned from the minors and struggled. He gave up five runs on nine hits in 4 and 2/3's innings, striking out three.

• The top three hitters in the Mets lineup had two hits each, while the rest of the lineup was shut down completely until the 9th inning when Pete Alonso doubled off Yennier Cano. The Mets 2-9 in the order was 1-for-21 on the evening.

• Jeff McNeil drove in all three runs for the Mets. He hit a two run HR off Kyle Gibson in the 4th, and drove in a run on a single in the 6th.

• Kyle Gibson won his 100th career game, going seven innings striking out nine and giving up three runs on four hits and a walk.

Turning Point

After Jeff McNeil homered to bring the Mets to within 3-2 in the top of the 4th, the Orioles came right back in the bottom of the frame off Megill on doubles by Jordan Westburg and Ramon Urias.

The Mets made it a habit of scoring in the inning immediately after giving up a run or runs. This season, other teams have made it their habit of doing that to the Mets. It's a deflating by-product of how the roster has underperformed this season and changed over the last week.

Three Keys

Tylor Megill's return: With the roster being depleted, guys like Mark Vientos are going to get chances to develop, but a pitcher like Megill is going to get an extended look to see if he can regain his form from last season. It isn't as if anyone is nipping at his heels for a spot in the rotation right now, so Megill is pretty much going to have a spot the rest of the season. Other players like Carlos Carrasco and Phil Bickford are also going to have spots the rest of the seaon, but they're roster filler at this point. Megill will get a serious look because the Mets will be looking at all reasonable options for the rotation for next season.

But if he keeps pitching as he has since about the middle of May, this is going to start to eminate the odor of his last chance with the Mets.

There were some positive signs for Megill, faint as they may be. He didn't walk anyone, and his velocity was up in the beginning of the game. But his velocity dipped late and the O's were licking their chops.

A squirrel finds his nuts: When they tell the tale of 2023, the failures of the starting pitching will be the prologue, with particular attention going to the multimillionaires: Scherzer and Verlander. But the drops in production from the hitters will be a part of the story. Not many batting champs have their averages drop 80 points the next season, but that's what we've seen from Jeff McNeil.

He's been finding it a little bit lately, and tonight's two hits and three RBI were much needed for him.

Speaking of the lineup: We talked about the drop in McNeil's production. But for tonight, and for the rest of the season, the lack of production at the plate is going to be a consistent story.

I mean, look at these batting averages in these lineups tonight:

The OPS numbers in the 600's don't help either. This is how you make Kyle Gibson look like Bob Gibson.