Mets owner Steve Cohen is taking shots at his hitters on Twitter, but his team is still maintaining its relentless positivity after Tuesday's loss put them below the .500 mark.
New York fell out of first place nearly two weeks ago, and now sit 4.5 games out of first, losing five in a row to start what many saw as a make-or-break stretch against the powerhouse Dodgers and Giants. So far, there haven't been many reasons for hope when it comes to the team's quest to end its five-year playoff drought, but the always-optimistic Pete Alonso is still trying to keep the faith.
"Our attitude, our process is excellent," Alonso said after Tuesday's loss in San Francisco. "I know it's tired and people want results. It's the nature of the beast and I totally understand that. But we're giving it our all out there. I'm so proud that every single game, we're locked in and we're in it. We scrap, and unfortunately, sometimes we come up short. It's frustrating, but leaving it all out there and the heart we have, it's special."
The Mets need results quickly before falling too far out of the race, but the bats continue to struggle to break out, scoring more than five runs just once since July 21. Alonso was the only offense in Tuesday's 3-2 loss with a two-run home run, but otherwise, the lineup hasn't produced, though Alonso continues to hammer home the sentiment that the team doesn't need to change its preparation or approach, even as the season continues to slip away.
"I think once we have that moment, we're not gonna know what that moment is until a week or two after it actually happens, because when you're in that special moment, you're just focused on doing your job," Alonso said. "But after time goes by, you can reflect back and be like 'This is it. This was that missing piece.'
"Guys aren't packing it in. We're not just folding, we're not giving in, we're not caving, and that's very difficult to do in a very difficult time. This is a character-building, humbling process for sure. Even though we're down, we're still fighting."
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Cohen called out the Mets in a tweet on Wednesday morning, while acting general manager Zack Scott called the team's play 'unacceptably bad' last week, even before this recent losing skid. But that kind of criticism doesn't seem to be making its way into the clubhouse among the players.
"We don't want to be here. We want to be in first place," Alonso said. "We've been in first place most of the eyar and we want to end game 162 in first place, winning the division and going to the playoffs…I really agree that we should be in a better place, but also on the flipside of that coin, I also think how we fight, how we prepare and the way we go about our business is excellent. It's just been a really difficult stretch."
This difficult stretch will be looked at as where the season was lost if the Mets can't turn things around quickly. With eight straight games still left against the Giants and Dodgers, the turnaround will have to happen almost immediately, and Alonso seems to believe that it will, and come six weeks from now when the playoffs begin, the Mets will still be playing.
"We want to win for sure," Alonso said. "We want to be the best. That's why we're all here. It's frustrating right now, but I think that we're gonna be in a very good place come the end of the year."
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