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Jorge Castillo, ESPN Staff Writer
NEW YORK — The New York Mets held a players-only team meeting Wednesday night after getting swept by the Los Angeles Dodgers with a 10-3 loss that included another late-inning bullpen implosion and reliever Jorge Lopez throwing his glove into his stands after being ejected.
The score was tied at 3-3 heading into the eighth inning before the Dodgers scored six times against three relievers. One was Lopez, who took issue with third-base umpire Ramon De Jesus’s ruling on a check swing from Shohei Ohtani.
Lopez wound up surrendering a two-run home run to Ohtani. He continued arguing with De Jesus while falling behind 3-1 to Freddie Freeman before the umpire ejected him.
Lopez untucked his jersey and threw his glove over the netting into the crowd as he walked off the field. He did not display any remorse after the game.
“No, I don’t regret it,” Lopez said.
Lopez continued: “Whatever happened, happened. I’ll be here tomorrow if they want me. Whatever they want to do. I’m going to keep doing this thing, you know. I’m healthy. … I’m ready to come back tomorrow if they want me to be here. So I’ll be here.”
Lopez labeled the dispute between him and De Jesus a “misunderstanding.”
“Just something out of emotions,” Lopez said, “I just don’t give a f— [about] anything.”
Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said he had not yet talked to Lopez about his behavior when he met with reporters.
“Whenever you’re going through a stretch like this, you want to see some emotions from players, anybody in here,” Mendoza said. “But what we saw today out of Lopey, that’s not acceptable. And we will address that internally here.”
Shortstop Francisco Lindor called for the players-only meeting while Mendoza addressed the media in attempt to rally the team to reverse course before it’s too late.
The Mets, now 22-33 after the Dodgers swept the three-game series, are 16 games out of first place in the National League East and six games out of the final Wild Card spot. They have dropped seven of eight games and 13 of 16. Several of the defeats, including two of three against the Dodgers this week, included bullpen meltdowns late.
Lindor said the meeting, which lasted over 30 minutes, was an opportunity for players to speak up and hold each other accountable.
“It was good for everybody,” Lindor said. “A lot of players talked. That’s really good. A lot of knowledge was dropped. Now we just got to put it together.”
The schedule says the Mets have 107 regular season games remaining, but the reality is the team has two months to convince president of baseball operations David Stearns to not sell players before the July 30 trade deadline.
Stearns on Tuesday said the deadline will be “an inflection point in the season.” By the end of the night, the Dodgers had swept a doubleheader from the Mets. And they beat them again Wednesday in what has been the ugliest loss of them all.