I’m too lazy to organize these thoughts in a meaningful manner. Not after another soul crushing one run loss. So it’s a stream of consciousness for you tonight …

The Mets are 2-11 against the best two teams in the National League. Seven of those games were one run losses. Some people will probably tell you that they were at least in every game, but there are plenty of instances where one run losses show how far you really are from the best teams in the league. Seven of them in a 2-11 stretch, you’re not in anything. You’re far away.

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I wanted 6-7 in the last 13. 6-7, even with the Braves going gonzo with a nine game winning streak, would have put them 3.5 back in the East. Not optimal, but making that up would not have been impossible. But 2-11? The math might still work, but anyone who has seen the Mets in that time frame will tell you that the execution just isn’t there.

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The Mets can get back into this by taking advantage of a favorable schedule. The next 18 games are against the Nationals and the Marlins. But before you go touting this easy schedule (which I have, but that was before this terrible stretch), think about how many seasons where you, the Met fan, looked at the schedule and saw a ton of games against the Marlins and said “we have an easy schedule”, and then wondered what the hell went wrong after the Mets dropped three out of four, four out of six, five out of eight, to them. If the Mets had gone 6-7 against that California gauntlet, I would have believed that they could have leaned on the Marlins and beat them seven out of eight.

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When Carlos Carrasco gave up the home run the Kris Bryant to put the Mets down 2-0 after five pitches, I thought “well here we go again”. But Carrasco was excellent after that, going seven innings and only giving up those two runs. Of all the pitchers that have remained with the Mets all season (meaning the ones that have primarily been with the big club as opposed to the minors, and the ones that haven’t spent too much time on the IL), Carrasco is probably the only one that hasn’t overachieved from their expectations. That goes for starters and relievers. There are extenuating circumstances regarding Carrasco, as missing the first three months with the hamstring injury probably wrecked his season. But Thursday night was a very good sign.