Carlos Mendoza, Mets ready to reset after Pirates sweep: 'We’re better than that'

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Following a tough 13-game stretch that saw the Mets get swept at home by the Tampa Bay Rays and then win just three out of 10 straight games against NL East opponents, the team came into Pittsburgh this weekend with a chance to right the ship against one of the worst teams, record-wise, in the National League.

But hopes of turning things around quickly dissipated, and what could have been a bounce-back weekend became another nightmarish series for the Mets, as the Pirates swept the three-game set in dominant fashion, outscoring New York 30-4.

“It’s frustrating, and we are all frustrated, obviously. Not gonna lie, we’re better than that, and they know that,” manager Carlos Mendoza said after Sunday’s 12-1 defeat. “It’s a tough stretch, but we’ve got to be better. It starts with me. We believe in those guys. Off day tomorrow, and then we’ve got another good team coming into town in the Brewers. They’re playing well, so we’ve got to bring our best game.

“[We’ll] continue to support the guys, but obviously we’re not happy about it.”

The Mets found themselves in an early hole on Sunday that proved to be too much for the club to dig out of, as starter Frankie Montas allowed five two-out runs in the first inning, including back-to-back home runs from Oneil Cruz and Tommy Pham.

Montas stuck around for 4.0 innings, allowing six earned runs on seven hits while striking out five and walking one, but his poor first inning was too much for the Mets to overcome.

“To be honest, just in that first inning I felt like I was missing my spots a little bit,” Montas said. “I thought I threw some pretty good pitches after that.

“I feel like I wasn’t really commanding my fastball the way I wanted to, and that’s the thing. If you’re not hitting your spots, they’re going to hit you pretty good.”

The Mets, who are now just 19-25 on the road this season and currently sit 1.5 games behind Philadelphia in the NL East standings, have an off day on Monday before welcoming the Milwaukee Brewers (winners of eight of their last 10) to Citi Field, starting on Tuesday night.

The Mets know they were outplayed by the Pirates in every facet during this weekend’s set, but Francisco Lindor explained that the hope is the off day allows them to reset before facing a hot Brewers club.

“It’s a tough stretch for sure. Hopefully getting the day off, the mental day off, and getting away from the field, we can come back and get back on the horse,” Lindor said.

“There’s a big league team on the other side,” he added later about the three-game sweep. “We’ve got to tip our cap to them, they outplayed us. They pitched better than us, they hit better than us, they got on base better than us, they played better defense. It’s a big league team on the other side. With that being said, there’s a sense of, yeah, we’re frustrated that we’re not winning, but at the end of the day it’s just part of the adversity that we’re dealing with right now.

“We’ve got to stick together and play as hard as we can to come out of it. Hopefully once we’re out of it, we don’t go back to something like this.”