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Syracuse Mets manager Kevin Boles is trying to build a club capable of winning a World Series. His team is the final hurdle for players making it to Citi Field and helping a New York Mets team that’s tied for first place.

He’s had an innumerable number of players cycle through NBT Bank Stadium and be a part of the Mets’ clubhouse in Syracuse. They now have the No. 1 prospect in Major League Baseball, Francisco Alvarez, who began the season in Double-A. Among other prospects, No. 18 overall prospect Brett Baty came through the organization momentarily en route to the big-league club. What’s left is a challenging coaching job with different personnel each week, leading the Mets to stumble through the majority of the summer all the way to Wednesday, when they sat 20 games below .500.

“I don’t know how many different personnel were in there, but it was quite a bit this year,” Boles said. “We’re just trying to build a championship organization, and we’re on our way.”

Syracuse entered its final game of the 2022 season with the third-worst record in the International League, far out of playoff contention. It drew a final contest at 11:05 a.m. against the Lehigh Valley IronPigs. A bullpen game, forced by Mychal Givens and other MLB players on rehab assignments, resulted in a 4-3 Mets’ (64-85) loss against the IronPigs (76-72).

After Mychal Givens quickly worked through his only inning of work, Alex Claudio took the mound for the Mets. Immediately the sidearm lefty struggled to find the zone and walked Rafael Marchan. Then, two pitches later against Jorge Bonifacio, his fastball stayed outside and low, just outside the reach of Álvarez.

As the ball jolted back to the depths of the backstop, Marchan jogged to second base. Claudio eventually fanned Bonifacio on a 69-mph pitch, but Marchan took off as he threw. Álvarez dropped the ball on the transition, allowing Bonifacio to slide into third with no throw.

It only took a weak chopper from Madison Stokes to bring Marchan home and give the IronPigs a 1-0 lead early in the second inning.

The Mets promptly answered back, beginning with a Khalil Lee walk to get the second inning going. A 1-1 pitch to Nick Meyer was outside, as Lee darted for second base. The throw was low, bouncing over Ali Castillo, and Lee slid safely into second.

Meyer walked, and with runners on second and first, Boles signaled for a double steal. On a 1-2 pitch to Branden Fryman, Lee took off for third and looked back to watch Kingery bobble a ground ball by Fryman. The delay allowed Lee to turn the corner toward home and take off to tie the game.

“They did well today overall,” Boles said. “I was pretty impressed with how they handled themselves.”

The IronPigs snapped back in the bottom of the third in just 15 pitches. Stephen Nogosek came out to continue the bullpen game and popped out Daniel Robertson to begin his outing. But Ali Castillo slapped a ground ball along the first base line that trickled into right field.

Rincon grabbed it and tried to get Castillo out at second, but the throw was late and brought Scott Kingery to the plate with a runner in scoring position. After working a 2-2 count, Kingery blasted a shot into left-center, and he traded places with Castillo to retake the lead for the IronPigs.

The Mets sent eight batters to the plate in the bottom of the third to retake the lead.

Lehigh’s Tayler Scott walked Yolmer Sanchez to load the bases, then JT Riddle grounded one up the hole on the right side. Lehigh misread the grounder, allowing it to dribble into shallow right field. Yolmer Sanchez jogged in from third base and spun around in time to see Alvarez barreling down to score the second run, giving the Mets their first lead of the afternoon.

A hard ground ball by Will Toffey to begin the seventh inning went through the legs of Gosuke Katoh, almost breaking the near-perfection the Mets had pitched over the last three innings. But Fryman backed up the first baseman and got the throw to Butto in time for the ground out. The ground ball misplayed through Katoh’s legs was just an omen for two pitches later, when Robertson stepped back in following a called strike. The ensuing pitch caught too much of the plate, and Robertson blasted it over the left field wall to tie the game.

Syracuse couldn’t muster any cohesive offense from that third inning on and only one runner got past first base. Meanwhile, Harol Gonzalez stepped in during the eighth inning with the score knotted at 3-3. Boles said Gonzalez was working on trying to implement a secondary pitch. While he sometimes uses a breaking ball that he can usually land in the strike zone and a changeup that he can set aside hitters with, none of it worked in the eighth.

“He just wasn’t able to get comfortable,” Boles said. “You could tell, his delivery looked a little bit off today.”

The Mets’ pitching staff has floundered all season as an Achilles heel that has hurt a team with young hitting prospects. Entering the final frame of the Triple-A season, however, the staff had allowed the second-most earned runs in the International League, the fifth-most hits and held the second worst ERA (5.18) in the league.

“We had a lot of guys that went up to the big leagues, and they’ve helped those guys win up there,” Boles said. “We weren’t as competitive as we’d like here, obviously from a win-loss record. But our guys have done well, whenever they’ve been called on to go up there.”

Published on September 28, 2022 at 5:36 pm

Contact Anthony: aalandt@syr.edu | @anthonyalandt