When Pete Alonso hit a two run triple to tie the game in the top of the 5th, and Dom Smith gave the Mets the lead with a sacrifice fly, it was an oasis in the desert. The Mets hadn’t had a triple in 68 games, and they were last in the league in sacrifice flies. But more importantly, the hitting approach which we have all been waiting for had returned! Alonso waited on a hanging splitter from Kevin Gausman and didn’t try to hit it into someone’s garlic fries. He took it the other way and got the big hit the Mets sorely needed to set up Dom’s sacrifice fly to give the Mets the lead for, like, three minutes.

But the oasis in the desert was merely a mirage, all of those bugaboos that have hurt the Mets returned, starting in the bottom of the 5th. Miguel Castro worked the fifth in relief of Rich Hill, and gave up a two run home run to Kris Bryant to lose the lead. Just to illustrate, here is Bryant’s 2021 heat map, courtesy of Fangraphs:

Now, look where Castro put this pitch, courtesy of MLB Gamecast (pitch 4):

Probably not an advisable strategy to throw the ball into the hottest part of the heat map

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