Mets fail to get big hit, fall to Padres
New York Mets' Francisco Alvarez returns to the dugout after striking out against the San Diego Padres to end an MLB baseball game at Citi Field on Tuesday, April 11, 2023. The Padres defeated the Mets 4-2. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Making the final out of the Mets’ 4-2 loss to the Padres on Tuesday night was the unproductive prodigy, Francisco Alvarez, who in his second game of the year — seventh of his life in the majors — struck out against Josh Hader, San Diego’s combustible closer.
Representing the potential winning run, the 21-year-old Alvarez got seven pitches, all fastballs, none in the strike zone. He swung and missed at three of them. He wished he had gotten at least one lower that he could have hit hard; a wild Hader did not oblige. Alvarez finished 0-for-4 with three strikeouts.
That ended the game. What decided it, though, was the Mets’ similar failures along the way — a bases-loaded, no-out situation in the first inning, a runners-on-the-corners, no-out chance in the fourth and so on.
Altogether, they went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position and left seven men on base.
“You can only do so much,” Pete Alonso said. “You prepare, you give your best effort and sometimes it’s just not good enough.”
Manager Buck Showalter said: “We needed five runs tonight. We weren’t able to get them. We had opportunities.”
Their ripest chance came in that first frame, when Padres lefthander Ryan Weathers allowed his first three batters to reach — Brandon Nimmo via walk, Starling Marte via bunt single, Francisco Lindor via walk.
Alonso (1-for-3, walk) struck out swinging for the first out. He lamented that the second pitch, a changeup that appeared to be outside, was called a strike by plate umpire Will Little, putting him in an 0-and-2 hole. After he fought his way into a full count, Alonso chased a changeup down and in, coming up empty on a big swing. He said he regretted swinging.
Mark Canha followed by grounding into an inning-ending double play.
“The challenge up here sometimes is not having those emotional at-bats, not only for him but everybody,” Showalter said, initially speaking of Alvarez. “We had a situation in the first inning that you could compare that to. That’s what I dwell on.”
Weathers, the son of David Weathers, a reliever for the Mets from 2002-04, mostly settled in from there, holding the Mets to one run and three hits across five innings.
Showalter and Alonso separately credited Weathers and the parade of Padres relievers for being effective — “a good pitcher made some pitches,” the manager said of the first-inning non-rally — but the Mets (6-6) have been doing a lot of cap-tipping through their first dozen games.
Their .200 average with runners in scoring position is 29th in the majors. Only the Royals (.154) have been worse. And the Padres, actually, are right above them at .219.
The difference this time was San Diego picked up a couple of big hits at timely moments. David Peterson allowed two runs in 5 2/3 innings, striking out six and walking two. He got burned only in the fifth, when Manny Machado lined a two-out, two-strike, two-run, two-base hit barely fair down the leftfield line to put the Padres ahead.
In a 2-and-2 count, Peterson went to his best pitch, his slider, to try to fool Machado, who ripped it foul and hard off the netting behind the visitors’ dugout. When Peterson did it again, another slider, Machado got it again, softer this time but placed perfectly to score a couple of runs.
“I thought it was the right pitch for the right spot,” Peterson said. “I don’t think I got it to the spot I wanted to. He gets paid the big bucks for a reason.”
Xander Bogaerts added a two-run homer in the top of the ninth off righthander Dennis Santana. That set up the dramatics in the bottom of the inning, when the spotlight found Alvarez, the Mets’ top prospect.
“That’s tough, but [Hader is] tough on anybody,” Showalter said. “It’s the biggest jump in sports, from the level of pitching you face down below to the level you face here every night. He’s got the skills to make the adjustment.”
Alvarez said through an interpreter: “I don’t think it’s that difficult, but I think I also have to wait on my pitches. That’s it.”
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.
