The Mets, riding high after a three-game sweep of the Philadelphia Phillies, had the chance to capitalize with the lowly, youthful Miami Marlins in town. But on Thursday night at Citi Field, the team pushing for the postseason played like the team that played nine rookies.
“We didn’t execute, we didn’t play a clean game, and they made us pay for it,” manager Carlos Mendoza said after the 7-4 defeat. “Didn’t do the little things, fundamentally, some routine plays there gave them some extra outs, some extra bases, and cost us a game.”
The tale of the tape: three Mets errors resulting in five unearned runs, including three unearned in the seventh to put the visitors ahead for good.
“Game got away from us there,” said Pete Alonso, who committed the first error of the seventh and was involved in another. “We gave the Marlins an opportunity, and they capitalized on every opportunity we gave them."
Mendoza dismissed the notion that this game was a bit of a hangover effort following the three-game sweep of the Phillies.
“I thought today the guys were in a good spot, prepared, just didn’t execute,” the skipper said. “Take the lead, we put pressure right away that first inning, and then it kinda gets away from us. We give up three runs in that third inning; we didn’t make routine plays.”
Playing with a 2-1 lead in the third, the Marlins had a runner on third and one out, and Jeff McNeil fielded a slow roller, and rather than taking the sure out at first, he fired home even though he had no chance to get the runner at the plate. The extra out came back to haunt them, as with two outs in the inning, Alonso fielded a grounder and threw to Clay Holmes covering first, but the starter had the ball pop out of his glove to score another run.
“I felt like I was in position to make the catch. It just kinda hit the part of my glove where it just jumped out of it,” Holmes said. “Goes in the pocket, it's probably an out, an easy catch. Kinda just stabbed at it, hit a part of the glove that was a little stiffer, and it just hopped out.
“A routine play that I should make 10 out of 10 times, but I didn’t make it there.”
Holmes, who allowed a third run to score in the inning with a single to put Miami ahead 4-2, said he wasn’t expecting it to be an underhanded toss from Alonso, who threw the ball overhand and on a line.
“We didn’t make plays behind him,” Mendoza said of the starter’s five-inning outing. “He’s a ground ball pitcher, he’s gonna rely on the defense, and today we didn’t execute.”
In the seventh, after Alonso tied the game with a two-run home run, his 30th of the year, the sloppiness returned. After a leadoff single, Alonso fielded a grounder cleanly, but lost the ball as he went to transfer it to start a double play. A single to left should have loaded the bases, but Brandon Nimmo bobbled the ball, allowing the go-ahead run to score.
A passed ball from catcher Hayden Senger put two runners in scoring position, setting up a one-out grounder to McNeil, and again with the infield in, another run scored as Liam Hicks' head-first dive just beat the tag. A sac fly plated the third run of the inning.
With 28 games left to play, dwelling on the loss isn’t in the plan ahead of three more against the Marlins over the weekend.
“Good thing is we got another game tomorrow,” Alonso, who went 2-for-4 at the plate, said. “Learn from it, flush it, and full speed ahead.”
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