A reflection on what it’s like to watch the Mets find new ways to lose, why situational baseball still matters, and how it feels to see the same patterns over and over while everyone else says it’s just variance.
I’ve been watching baseball long enough to know that slumps happen. A good team loses a few games, a hitter goes cold, and over the course of 162 games, things usually even out. At least, that’s what everyone says.
But I’m not so sure anymore.
I’m a Mets fan, which means I’ve learned to expect disappointment in all its creative forms. But right now, it’s especially brutal. They’ve lost 12 of their last 14. They’re batting .218 as a team with runners in scoring position—second worst in the league—and every time they get a chance to do damage, it feels like they find a new way not to.
Yesterday was a day off, and I actually texted a friend: “Good news—we can’t lose today!” That’s how bad it’s gotten. It feels like they’re losing every game in every possible way.
If you bring this up, you’ll hear a lot of smart people talk about “variance.” They’ll tell you that over time, the numbers regress to the mean, that no team stays that bad with runners on base forever, that you shouldn’t overreact. And maybe that’s true in some theoretical universe. But in reality, those outs are costing games, and those games are costing seasons.
I can’t shake the feeling that when we shrug and say it’s all randomness, we’re letting the team—and ourselves—off the hook. We’re pretending there’s no agency, no patterns, no cause-and-effect. But if you watch closely, you can see it: hitters pressing, expanding the zone, failing to execute a simple approach with a runner on third and one out. And you can also see the opposite—the rare moment where they do something right.
Like the other day: Jeff McNeil gets hit by a pitch. Next batter, they call a hit-and-run. Torrens slaps the ball through the right side because the first baseman was holding the runner, and McNeil goes first to third. Then Beatty hits a deep fly ball, and they manufacture a run. That’s not luck. That’s baseball played with intention.
It struck me how satisfying that inning was—and how rarely we see it. It made me think about teams that do these little things well over and over, the ones that feel almost inevitable in tight games.
You don’t have to look far for examples. In 2015, the Royals basically built their entire identity around situational baseball. They were relentless about putting pressure on you—singles, stolen bases, sacrifice flies. They didn’t care about launch angle. They cared about first-to-third and getting a run home any way they could.
Javy Báez was another one—when he was with the Cubs, he turned going first-to-third into an art form. You’d see him take that perfect turn around second, and you knew there was no throw that would beat him.
Or take Brett Gardner with the Yankees. He’d grind out a 10- or 12-pitch at-bat that didn’t look like much on the box score—maybe he ended up grounding out—but it forced the pitcher to empty the tank. An inning later, the starter was out of the game. That’s the stuff that never shows up as a highlight, but it wins over time.
And that’s why I’m tired of waiting for the numbers to “normalize.” I’d rather see for myself what’s happening.
So I’m starting something simple: a situational baseball tracker. Every game I watch, I’m going to log what actually happens when the Mets get chances. Not just whether they get a hit, but what kind of at-bat they have. Did they move the runner over? Did they stay patient and work a walk? Did they chase a slider in the dirt? Did they get a fly ball deep enough to score the run?
I made a Google Sheet so I can track it over multiple games. It’s not fancy. It has columns for the situation, what happened, and whether it helped or hurt. I’m going to keep tally of how often they execute the basics that win baseball games. Over time, I hope I’ll see patterns—who does the little things, and who doesn’t.
I’m not doing this because I think I’m smarter than the analytics departments. I’m doing it because it feels like a way to stay connected to the part of baseball that doesn’t fit neatly into a spreadsheet. The part where you have to make decisions in real time, with runners on base and the game on the line.
Maybe the numbers will eventually bounce back, and everyone will say, “See? Just variance.” But if they don’t—if the same patterns keep showing up—I’ll know exactly why.
And as I’m finishing this, the Mets just blew another lead. Holmes finally became our first starter in what feels like forever to reach the sixth inning. Garrett comes in, and on the very first pitch gives up the lead when Brice Turang rips a double. It’s 2–2 now. Next pitch, a single puts runners on the corners. Then a walk, and finally a 3-1 count grand slam to the 9 hitter. Just unbelievable the “variance” we are experiencing. But if you were watching, you know exactly how it happened—and why it keeps happening.
What I Hope to Learn:
I want to see patterns. Which hitters do the little things right? Which ones are pressing? Over the course of the season, I’ll have a record of why the Mets won or lost—not just what the stats say.
Why You Should Try It:
If you’re a fan who feels like modern baseball lost some of its soul, this is the antidote. It brings you back into the game. It reminds you that even in the era of launch angle and spin rate, a well-executed sacrifice fly still wins ballgames.
Download Your Own Tracker
I made my situational baseball tracker available as a Google Sheet you can use yourself.
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