Wednesday
Gary Cohen should count his blessings that he doesn’t work for Peter Angelos.
But there was a time that he worked for an owner viewed in a similar vein.
Once upon a time, Fred Wilpon owned the New York Mets and SportsNet New York. If you don’t know much about the Wilpons, consider that a stroke of good fortune. But there’s a reason why the Mets fans in your lives walk around with a different swagger. They have an owner, Steve Cohen, who spends like a drunken sailor. And while the results haven’t always matched the payroll, at least we’ve moved on from the era where Mets baseball was flat-out unwatchable.
Of course, they’re also unwatchable now. But we’ll get to that in a second.
Throughout all the dysfunction — past and present — Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez, and Ron Darling have been the constant. They’ve made Mets games feel meaningful, even when they haven’t been. And to Cohen’s credit, he’s never treated the broadcast booth like a front office press release. He’s honest. Fair. Not overly theatrical. But when the team deserves criticism, he delivers it.
Wednesday was one of those days.
As the Mets dropped to an ugly 3-14 over their last 17 games, Gary Cohen didn’t hold back.
The June swoon rolled right into July, and Cohen made it clear he wasn’t interested in sugarcoating any of it.
Cohen didn’t dance around the “awful” three games the Mets just played in Pittsburgh. In a three-game sweep, the Mets were outscored 30-4 by the lowly Pirates, marking the worst series loss in franchise history by a significant margin. He also singled out Mark Vientos, saying he “did not look good” since coming off the injured list. Wednesday’s 0-for showing in a 7-2 loss to the Brewers dropped him to 1-for-15 with seven strikeouts since his return.
He wasn’t done there.
Gary Cohen is being really critical of the Mets right now. Good thing he doesn’t work for Peter Angelos.
https://twitter.com/Sam_Neumann_/status/1940466552316604695
As the Mets came to bat in the bottom of the ninth, having not recorded a hit since Pete Alonso’s RBI single in the fourth, the heart of the order walked to the plate with their tails tucked between their legs. Juan Soto struck out on three pitches. Alonso weakly rolled over a groundout to the shortstop. And Brandon Nimmo flew out.
It was fitting for a team that’s now gone 0-for-33 when trailing after eight innings. And it’s in large part because the pitching hasn’t been precise, but the hitting hasn’t been just either. As the Brewers’ pitching staff retired 18 of the last 19 Mets’ batters on Wednesday, Cohen quipped about New York going down with a “whimper.”
The Mets recorded two hits in Wednesday’s loss. And they weren’t about to get another one.
“That’s really been the case often in these games where they’ve fallen behind,” Cohen said. “The at-bats late in games have really suffered.”
“The Mets going out with a whimper. That’s really been the case often in these games where they’ve fallen behind. The at-bats late in games have really suffered.” – Gary Cohen. pic.twitter.com/tpyed8XouC
https://twitter.com/awfulannouncing/status/1940499816112668727?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1940499816112668727%7Ctwgr%5E515d36a003c7114b982f180ffcc711222d89b52b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fawfulannouncing.com%2Fmlb%2Fgary-cohen-rips-mets-going-out-whimper.html
The at-bats have been suffering all season, but that wasn’t really Cohen’s point. He was calling out the lack of fight. In just about all of those 14 losses, the Mets have rolled over. They aren’t stringing together rallies. They aren’t creating traffic on the bases. And they’re almost always trailing by the time you find the remote.
On Wednesday, it took all of two pitches for the Mets to fall behind 1-0. Sal Frelick launched Clay Holmes’ second offering into another area code. And yet again, the game felt over before it began.
And that’s what Cohen was really getting at, not just the poor hitting, but the complete absence of urgency. You can lose games and still look like you’re trying.
This team isn’t doing either.
