Two-Week Recap: Mets' Bats Go Cold as Team Falls to 10-13

By ZACH DOLEIDEN

NEW YORK – After a hot start to their 2013 campaign, the Mets have suddenly hit a wall, losing five of their last six contests while falling to 10-13 on the season. The free-fall leaves New York in fourth place in the National League East and 4.5 games behind the first-place Atlanta Braves.

On the surface, it is easy to blame the Mets’ schedule during week three of the season for a cluster of losses to the Rockies in snowy Colorado for throwing the Mets off track, and understandably so: the poor weather conditions forced two postponements and a day-night doubleheader. This undoubtedly made things tough on a pitching staff trying to retain proper rest between starts.

But when push comes to shove, the Rockies took the field and captured victories in a snow-shortened three game series (game three was postponed with no makeup date set yet).

More likely to be responsible for the struggles experienced by the Mets is the team’s recent power outage and lack of execution offensively.

Coming into week four of the season, the Mets offense ranked as the third-highest scoring team in the National League. The big swings have begun to grow quiet in the Big Apple however, as the team has scored four runs or fewer in five of their last six games.

This prompted manager Terry Collins to rearrange his lineup in a weekend series versus the Phillies in order to try and ignite a spark of some sort in the last three games of week four. Instead, the move appeared to backfire as the Metropolitans were swept and outscored 18-5 in the three games.

Part of the Mets’ offensive woes are a result of catcher John Buck falling back to Earth. After a red-hot start to his first season as a Met, Buck has since cooled off, batting just .167 in his last eight games.

It was assumed that Buck, a career .236 hitter, wasn’t going to be the one to carry the team offensively for the entire season. If nothing else, the recent lack of offense is a sign that the time has come for other players in the lineup to step up and earn their keep by contributing at the plate.