Mets bats remain muffled in loss to Giants
Francisco Lindor after striking against the San Francisco Giants in the sixth inning on Tuesday. Credit: AP/Jeff Chiu
SAN FRANCISCO — If you nodded off during these recent late-night West Coast games, don’t feel bad. The Mets’ bats have been sleeping, too.
They lost to the Giants, 5-1, on Tuesday after scoring their only run in the ninth inning. In their teamwide mini-slump, they have three runs in 28 innings going back to Saturday.
“It’s part of 162 \[games\],” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “You’re facing some good arms.”
The Mets always are quick to cite that theme, which has been particularly applicable in recent days: excellent opposing pitching.
This time it was Logan Webb, who one-upped Keaton Winn’s effort Monday and matched the Dodgers’ Tyler Glasnow from Sunday with eight scoreless innings. He scattered six hits — three from Starling Marte — and one walk and struck out four.
Webb kept the Mets (12-11) off balance with a four-pitch mix highlighted by a dastardly changeup. He threw it 49 times, getting 13 whiffs and allowing two hits.
That offered a glimpse into why Webb finished second in NL Cy Young Award voting last season. Who beat him? His new teammate, Blake Snell, whom the Mets will face in the series finale Wednesday (Snell has struggled through three starts with the Giants).
Against Webb, a righthander, Mendoza tried to put a platoon advantage in the Mets’ favor by stacking the lineup with seven lefthanded batters, including all of the bottom five (and switch hitter Francisco Lindor).
It did not work.
“He’s a tough pitcher,” Marte said through an interpreter. “He’s one of those pitchers that has a lot of different pitches that have a lot of movement, and they come at very different angles. So whenever he releases, they all look like strikes. You have to go in there focused and really hope that when you’re making a swing, it’s a ball that’s located where you can take advantage.”
Mendoza said: “He was on. It was one of those nights where we couldn’t get anything going.”
And Luis Severino: “Logan Webb is a great pitcher.”
At a time of year when the sample sizes still are small enough that the numbers fluctuate from game to game, the statistics nonetheless are striking. By the end of Tuesday, the Mets had one guy in their lineup, Marte (.305), batting above .270. They had three players with an OPS above .750: Marte (.821), Pete Alonso (.864) and DJ Stewart (.816).
The Mets have lost three games in a row after winning six straight. This snapped their streak of five consecutive series wins.
For a while, Severino looked like he was Webb’s equal, retiring all of his first 12 batters through four innings. But he sputtered near the end, ultimately allowing three runs and five hits in six innings.
The Mets have not had a starting pitcher touch the mound in the seventh inning this season.
Severino’s abbreviated bid at perfection came undone in a hurry in the bottom of the fifth. San Francisco (12-13) managed its first baserunner when Michael Conforto dropped a bloop single into leftfield, just in front of Jeff McNeil.
That marked the start of a 10-pitch, five-batter, four-single, three-run sequence that proved to be the difference. Ex-Yankee Thairo Estrada brought in the first run with a single snuck through the left side of the infield. Mike Yastrzemski plated the other two with a single looped to center.
“If their approach was to throw the bloopers out there, it worked,” Severino said. “Everything was good. A lot of good luck out there. A couple of bloopers. That’s part of the game. We made great pitches. If I continue to do that, things will go my way.”
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.
