Freddy Peralta said goodbye to the Mets on Sunday, sent to Tampa Bay.
Clay Holmes was pitching with Class-A Brooklyn instead of in Queens, as the Mets chose not to end his rehab assignment, even after the right-hander said he was “more than ready” to be in the majors after recovering from a fractured right fibula.
That’s why Robert Stock started for this disastrous Mets team on the day before the trade deadline, as the team prepares for the final two months of what’s been among the worst seasons in franchise history.
It won’t be pretty, with more dominoes expected to fall before Monday’s 6 p.m. deadline.
On Sunday, they lost a third straight game to the Marlins, this one 2-0, as the offense has been limited to 11 runs in the past six games.
As interim manager Andy Green said of interim starter Stock, who started just three games in his brief MLB career before Sunday, “It came down to who was available today and had the right amount of pitches [to throw]. He’s aware of that. He’s smart.”
This is what the Mets have resorted to and even though the 36-year-old Stock pitched well, allowing just one run in five innings, they were unable to avoid a loss that got them back to a season-high 19 games under .500.
Stock gave up just a one-out homer to Joe Mack in the fifth.
The Mets then turned to a trio of other likely trade targets, Brooks Raley, Luke Weaver and Huascar Brazoban, rather than avoiding them as the deadline closed in.
But Devin Williams, who isn’t going anywhere, gave up a run in the ninth to give Miami some insurance as the Marlins try to stay in the NL wild-card race.
By the time the Mets play again, in Cleveland on Tuesday to start a nine-game road trip, they will undoubtedly look different, but any hope of a second-half turnaround has long since disappeared.
“We’ve got a game to play, a game to win,’’ Green said prior to the game. “The focus is today… There’s added emotion for different guys. Our job is to cut out the noise [and] go play baseball. We have not swung the bats well enough the last couple days. We’ve got to put some runs on the board.”
Then they went out and got shut down by Miami right-hander Sandy Alcántara, who tossed six-plus scoreless innings.
Luis Robert Jr. opened the bottom of the seventh with a single — just the Mets’ third hit of the day — and Jared Young followed with a double that sent Robert to third to end Alcántara’s afternoon.
Michael Petersen entered and walked Marcus Semien to load the bases with no outs, but Jorge Polanco and Francisco Alvarez struck out and A.J. Ewing grounded to second to waste the scoring chance.
Francisco Lindor led off the next inning with a double, but was stranded at third and Ewing left a pair on in the ninth, as the Mets went 0-for-10 with runners in scoring position.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: nypost.com
