The Mets scored five runs on Saturday, which is usually a very good thing. They came into the game 17-1 when they tallied five or more runs in a game this year. Make that 17-2 as after battling back from a four-run deficit, the offense could do no more and the bullpen allowed four runs. Saturday’s loss is on the pitching but still, most fans are happy with the pitching and worried about the offense.

No one was confusing the offense with that of a juggernaut coming into the season, two of the team’s three-best hitters are on the DL, nobody’s been able to come up from the minors and give a spark and the GM would rather fight than make a mid-season trade. In other words, it’s on the group of people here to make it work.

Saturday, the lineup had a 6-7-8 grouping of Wilmer Flores, Juan Lagares and Kevin Plawecki. The good news is that those three got on base four times and scored two runs. The bad news is that their season-long OPS marks are .680, .589 and .559, respectively.

While it’s often accurate to place the blame at the feet of Terry Collins, he really doesn’t have much choice here. It’s difficult to argue he should break these guys up and place one or more of them higher in the order. Perhaps he should be giving more ABs to Anthony Recker but that’s the only one of the three spots where he has a legitimate option. And let’s not pretend Recker is an offensive dynamo, either.

Lagares has the same problems he’s always had – he doesn’t walk or hit for much power and he chases too many pitches out of the strike zone. The difference is now he’s playing through elbow and rib injuries. He’s played 46 games this year and has a 0.0 fWAR. At nearly the one-third mark of the season, Lagares has been replacement level. The problem is that there’s no one to replace him with. The decision to break camp with Kirk Nieuwenhuis as the backup CF looks worse and worse every day.

Everyone knows my affection for Matt den Dekker and no doubt that many of you are only way too happy to point out his struggles at Triple-A, where he features a .600 OPS for the season. Subjectively, none of us should be overly surprised that a last-minute move to another organization (and then the minors) had a negative impact on him. Objectively, his OPS is 285 points higher in May than it was in April and in his last 17 games, he has a .781 OPS in the International League.

That’s nothing to do cartwheels about; however, even after you make the adjustment to the majors it’s better than the .492 OPS Lagares has produced in the same time period. A healthy den Dekker is better than an injured Lagares. Unfortunately, we don’t have the former and we do have the latter. For his part, Lagares is being a team player by refusing to blame the injuries for his performance and he’s gutting it out for as long as he can.

Flores has settled down in the field and if nothing else, he offers the promise of the long ball. If he was the worst offensive player on the team, no one would consider him a problem. But with two other sinkholes in the lineup, it’s hard not to notice his .296 wOBA, which ranks 21st among MLB shortstops. For a guy in there for his bat, that’s not very impressive.

Last year in 274 PA, Flores had a .664 OPS, a .291 wOBA and an 88 wRC+. This year those numbers are a .680 OPS, a .296 wOBA and a 90 wRC+ in 170 PA. Since he carries a .241 BABIP this season, it would be erroneous to say that there’s no room for growth in his offensive profile. But it’s fair to ask how long the Mets should wait for that growth to occur. If Ruben Tejada didn’t have to play 3B we could ask for him to get time at SS. But until Dilson Herrera or David Wright returns to the lineup, that choice simply does not exist.

Plawecki looks good in the uniform. In the batter’s box, his swing looks like one that can contribute to the major league team. He comes with a nice pedigree. Perhaps one day in the future he’ll be an asset. That day is not now. The Wright injury really hurts the club. But if given the choice, the Mets should pick Travis d’Arnaud to come back first.

Perhaps d’Arnaud is nowhere close to the .892 OPS hitter he was before the injury. But even if we knock 100 points of production from that figure, that’s still 233 points better than what Plawecki has given the club since his promotion. Look, no one should be surprised when a rookie struggles in his first taste of the majors. The difference this time is no one talks about it. The answer is not to bad mouth the youngster just as sure as it’s not to play him every day in the majors. At this point they should send him down and bring Johnny Monell back. At least Monell offers the hope of improvement on his .083 BABIP.

A couple of years ago, the Mets had a poor May due mostly to the “Terrible Trio” of John Buck, Ike Davis and Tejada. The difference is that the Mets had easy solutions then that they do not have now. In 2013, the issue was with the guy writing out the lineup card. Today the problem is with lady luck and the guy sitting in the GM chair.

Two years ago, Buck ended up traded, Davis was sent to the minors and Tejada was injured. All three of the guys ended up removed one way or another, even if they received many more PA in the majors than they should have. It will be interesting to see what the Mets do with Flores, Lagares and Plawecki going forward.

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