PITTSBURGH — Saturday night became an unexpected meet and greet for the Mets.
Following a consecutive noncompetitive defeat to a last-place team, the Mets convened a players-only meeting in the visiting clubhouse at PNC Park, hoping that discussing matters would be the initial step toward improvement.
Brandon Nimmo (who did not speak in the meeting) indicated that Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso were among the “six or seven” players who spoke up.
Another player present told The Post that Juan Soto spoke during the meeting.
Lindor remarked after their 9-2 defeat to the Pirates, “It’s not about being overly optimistic, like predicting the season will suddenly turn around. We are still competing. We’re just one game out of first place and leading the wild card race.
“There’s no magic fix. If it were that easy, we would have done it long ago, but this is part of the adversity we’re facing. It’s valuable to face each other and recognize that we are all experiencing this together, reinforcing that this is a team effort.”
The Mets lost for the 12th time in 15 games, emerging from a rain delay in the second inning to fall flat against the hapless Bucs for a second straight night.
In the two games, the Mets have been outscored 18-3.
This after the Mets had appeared to turn the corner on the last home stand by winning their final two games against the Braves to earn a series split.
After the Mets lost a seventh straight game last weekend, Lindor was asked about the possibility of a players only meeting.
He said at the time that any such discussion would have to occur “organically.”
And that is how he described the origins of Saturday’s meeting.
“After the game we all sat here and it just happened,” Lindor said. “We collectively as a group decided to start talking to each other and that is what good teams do. We all rely on each other. We all bounce ideas off each other.”
The Mets held a players only meeting on May 29 last season with the team sputtering and soon began a turnaround that ended in Game 6 of the NLCS.
But the club also brought in new pieces around that time, including Jose Iglesias, the ringleader of the “OMG” Mets who captivated New York.
Nimmo described this latest meeting as a community forum.
“It wasn’t necessarily one guy saying, ‘Hey, you need to do this or that,’ ” Nimmo said. “This was more of just a community talk and getting things out there. It was good. We’ll see if it works or not.”
Soto, who has been among the few Mets producing lately — he owns a 1.214 OPS in June — told players to “keep believing,” according to a source.
Neither Lindor nor Alonso would divulge what message they imparted. Alonso said several issues, not just one, have plagued the Mets.
“Just collectively as a group — offensively, defensively, baserunning — we’re not playing our cleanest baseball,” Alonso said. “We’re not playing to our maximum potential right now. It shows in the record. We’re playing good games or staying in games, but I think we need to do a better job of finishing.”
Lindor hopes that talking it out will serve the players well.
“We’re in a position where we are taught to keep things inside,” Lindor said. “When we all see guys talking, it seems like we are all going through the same thing at the same time, so why not talk about it? It makes you feel like you are not playing alone, like you are playing a team sport.”
