The New York Mets 2024 season is not off to a great start with back-to-back losses to the Milwaukee Brewers. Even worse, they allowed a longtime nemesis — former Philadelphia Phillies first basemen Rhys Hoskins — to completely humiliate them in Saturday's 7-6 Brewers win.
Hoskins went 3-for-4 with a walk and four RBI in the win, but the box score is only a small fraction of the embarrassment for the Mets.
The Mets and Hoskins were already at odds going into Saturday's game because of a slide in Friday's game that took out second basemen Jeff McNeil, resulting in the benches briefly emptying.
Given the history between Hoskins and the Mets, he was greeted on Saturday by Mets fans raining boos down on him every time he came to bat. Those at-bats included a two-run single in the first inning, a two-run home run in the third inning and a single later in the game.
But it was his seventh-inning at-bat that really made the Mets look foolish.
It was at that point that Mets reliever Yohan Ramirez attempted to deliver a message to Hoskins for his slide on Friday — and his reaction to the Mets taking exception to it — by throwing behind him on the first pitch.
Ramirez then walked toward home plate as if to challenge Hoskins.
Hoskins stood there completely bemused by the whole thing, while Ramirez got ejected.
The Mets announcers were also extremely critical of how the whole situation was handled, arguing that if they wanted to send a message to Hoskins it should have been done two hours earlier and not after Hoskins had already dominated the game.
"It's too late to throw at a guy after he's beaten your brains in." Ron Darling had quite the take on the pitch to Rhys Hoskins (who was 3-for-3 with 4 RBI) that got Yohan Ramirez ejected. pic.twitter.com/kIEVYvLNkk
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) March 30, 2024
They are exactly right. All of the drama started with the Mets on Friday when McNeil took exception to Hoskins' slide.
Then the fans booed, Hoskins fed off of it and Ramirez ended up getting himself ejected. All while the Mets dropped their second game in a row to open the season.
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