Jose Quintana has problems with consistency in August

The dog days of August can be tough on any player. Unfortunately for the New York Mets, Jose Quintana has picked a difficult time of the year for one of his more inconsistent stretches. In Tuesday night's 9-5 loss to the Baltimore Orioles, Quintana had his second-worst performance of the season against one of the better teams in baseball.

That night, Quintana played five innings, allowed seven runs on eight hits, walked two batters and struck out three on 90 pitches (57 strikes). He allowed two home runs, which is the fifth time this year that he has allowed multiple home runs in a game. Those two homers came from Anthony Santander at the top of the first and former Met James McCann in the fourth.

Although Quintana was able to complete five innings, he hasn't pitched more than five innings in three of his four starts in August. He has an 8.27 ERA this month and is yet to record a win. The only other month he managed that this year was May, when he went 0-3 with a 7.20 ERA in five starts.

The Mets don't necessarily need Quintana as an ace, but they need him to keep the team in the game, and he failed to do that on Tuesday. He made ten swings and misses on his throws, four of which were his sinkers (Baseball Expert). However, the pitch that hit McCann's home run in the fourth inning was the sinker. Santander's home run in the first inning came on a 3-2 curveball.

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One of Quintana's biggest problems this season was his inability to hit home runs. He allowed 22 home runs, five more than any other Mets pitcher (Sean Manaea is second with 17). This number is the fourth highest in the National League.

Yes, this tie applies to good pitchers like Freddy Peralta And Aaron Nolabut that's not the stat you want to compare to those pitchers. Plus, his batting average of .247 is the ninth highest in the NL.

As a possible reason for allowing so many home runs, Quintana said after the game that he needed to execute his throws better.

“Execution. Sometimes I don't hit my points well. But I'm totally confident, I'll keep competing and keep fighting. This is the perfect time to keep my head up and help the team,” Quintana said.

Quintana still has a month of the season left, but he's on pace to set a new career record for home runs allowed in a season (25 home runs allowed with the Chicago Cubs in 2018). When you don't have the high strikeout total, you have to be able to keep opposing batters from hitting the ball out of the ballpark, and the veteran hasn't been able to do that.

At this point, the Mets have no other alternative to Quintana. He needs to regain the consistency he had earlier this summer. Even in his start in Seattle, a lopsided seventh inning ruined a start that at one point saw him strike out 14 batters in a row.

It's up to Quintana to figure out and fix the execution issues, because given the way the bullpen was used, he'll have to pitch consistently through the sixth inning.