The Mets were burned by their bullpen again on Wednesday night in Washington, D.C. as they continue to work without star closer Edwin Diaz, who is now on game eight of a 10-game suspension for sticky stuff.
For the second time in the past few days, New York squandered a five-run lead, as the Nationals scored seven unanswered times to secure a come-from-behind victory on their home field.
The Mets’ bullpen has been extremely leaky since they lost Diaz on Sunday Night Baseball against the Chicago Cubs, and this time it was Jake Diekman who had the honors and was handed his third loss.
The southpaw entered in a lefty-lefty matchup against CJ Abrams with two outs in the seventh, and after issuing a 10-pitch walk, he allowed back-to-back singles to bring the tying and go-ahead runs in to score.
“They are really good at putting the ball in play and making you work,” Diekman said. “They just grind out at-bats and make you hurt yourself and then it kind of snowballs from there. The first at-bat was 10 pitches and then the balls were just noncompetitive again.”
This is just the latest of what’s been a plethora of late-inning meltdowns from the Mets’ bullpen, as they’ve pitched to a 6.82 ERA and have been accountable for all three of the team’s losses over that span.
Since the closer is still occupying a roster spot, New York has been shuffling minor league relievers in and out of town over the past few days in an attempt to keep things fresh, but it’s resulted in their continued struggles to close out games.
While Diaz will finally be eligible to return to the club for the second game for this weekend’s series against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Diekman says they just have to continue trying to get the job done while he’s gone.
“You just gotta keep grinding it out, we know he’ll be back soonish,” he said. “It’s been like a revolving door, they’ve done a really good job of keeping people fresh, we just have to keep going out and try to keep the score the same or keep the lead, that’s it.”
And even when Diaz returns, this team has shown over that past few weeks that they certainly need some bullpen help at the trade deadline if they hope to continue making noise in the NL Wild Card race.
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