Unusual game but usual result as Mets drop series to Astros

HOUSTON — This one was a mess — and so, still, are the Mets.

They dropped the finale with the Astros, 10-8, in a back-and-forth jumble on Wednesday to lose another series and underscore the questions big and small that get at the viability of their flailing season.

For how long can they stick with Tylor Megill in the rotation?

What is wrong with the pitching staff overall?

When, if ever, are they going to turn this thing around?

None of the above came with immediate answers because, well, the Mets just don’t know.

At 34-40 as they approach the halfway point of the season, they’re not just losing. They’re lost.

“Baseball is hard. It’ll try all it can to make you want to quit and make you want to give in,” Daniel Vogelbach said. “It’s why not everybody can do it. If I know these people, these guys in this clubhouse, we’re not going to be those people. We’re going to keep going and we'll stick together and we’ll get out of it. We’re going to go on a winning streak. I don’t know when that is. I wish I could tell you when. But I truly believe it’s going to happen. We’re going to get right back to where everybody in here believes we should be.”

Manager Buck Showalter said: “It’s not just one person or one phase. We collectively have to play more consistently.”

Showalter added that he is able to maintain confidence “because they’re good,” an assessment he bases on “history, track record.”

“If you want to live in that what-have-you-done-for-me-lately world, you’re not going to be doing them a service,” he said. “I’ve got a long memory of how good they are.”

Lately, the Mets have scored plenty and pitched poorly. They have scored at least seven runs in seven of their past 22 games. But they are 1-6 in those games.

Their ERA on the season is 4.68. That is 26th out of 30 teams.

What Mets pitchers have struggled with, according to pitching coach Jeremy Hefner, are the absolute basics.

“I don’t think we’re necessarily doing the things that we can control to the best of our abilities,” Hefner said. “Getting strike one. Getting two strikes before two balls . . . If I had that answer [on how to fix this], I think we would’ve rectified it already.”

The Mets and Astros (41-34) were about equals on the starting pitcher front. Megill allowed five runs, four hits and four walks in 2 1/3 innings. Houston righthander Cristian Javier allowed four runs, four hits and five walks in 2 1/3 innings.

Against Megill (5.17 ERA), nine of 15 batters reached base. For Javier (3.25 ERA), it was 10 of 16.

“That’s more so the embarrassing part for me: Our offense has gone out there and they’re putting up great at-bats and getting the run support,” Megill said. “And obviously, the way their pitching happened to go. It’s one of those things where you want to go the distance. It’s not just for myself. It’s for the bullpen, the whole team. That’s probably more so the frustrating part. I’m not helping the team out because I’m not doing my job.”

When it became a battle of the bullpens, righthander Dominic Leone doomed the Mets. He entered with a 1.69 ERA over the previous month but gave up four runs — plus an inherited runner — in 1 1/3 innings to put the Mets back in a hole from which they never escaped.

They narrowly missed tying the score in the sixth, when leftfielder Corey Julks’ diving catch robbed Brett Baty of a hit; and the seventh, when Brandon Nimmo’s line drive went off the top of the leftfield wall instead of over it. Julks threw Nimmo out at second.

“Putting up eight runs against that pitching staff over there, you can tell we’re in a pretty good place as an offense,” said Pete Alonso, whose 23rd home run in the sixth inning got the Mets to within a run (but accounted for their last runs).

In the first, the Mets had four baserunners — three walks and a hit batsman — but managed not to score.

The key play: Alonso’s bases-loaded, no-out, check-swing tapper back to the pitcher became a double play when Alonso was called out for runner interference. He encroached too far on the fair side of the foul line, plate umpire Brian O’Nora ruled.

“I just hit it back to the pitcher and ran as fast as I could to first base,” Alonso said. “Watching the replay, I started up the line a little bit, but I thought I got back toward the running lane. It’s umpire’s discretion. There’s a little bit of gray area, but nothing I can do.”

Showalter said: “It’s the right call. I was hoping they wouldn’t enforce it. What are you going to argue? It’s a pretty easy call.”

Alonso lamented that missed opportunity. Even on a day when the Mets scored a lot, he said, that moment could have changed the tenor of the entire game.

“The value of a singular run is wild. It’s indescribable,” Alonso said. “You never know how big an extra one run can be. I had a missed opportunity in the first. Then in my second at-bat off Javier, I had a really good swing but got underneath it [for a hard flyout to center]. If that was a sac fly in the first inning, maybe something else happens. There’s always a bunch of what-ifs.”

By Tim Healey

timothy.healey@newsday.com@timbhealey

Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.