Mets' bullpen, still lacking Edwin Diaz, blows it in loss to Nationals

WASHINGTON — The good news for the Mets is Edwin Diaz’s 10-game sticky-stuff suspension is almost over. They have to navigate only two more games before he returns Saturday.

The bad news for the Mets is his absence and its ripple effects have impacted each of their past several games, including a 7-5 loss to the Nationals on Wednesday night.

The Mets built a five-run lead by the fifth. The Nationals did all the scoring after that.

Lefthander Jake Diekman was the reliever to blame this time, allowing two runs and needing 27 pitches to record one out in the bottom of the seventh. But the decision-making from manager Carlos Mendoza that led to that moment was inextricably linked to missing Diaz and an overall overworked and shorthanded bullpen, which also had to handle extra-inning games the past two days.

“You just keep grinding it out,” Diekman said of bullpen life without the team’s most talented reliever. “We know he’ll be back. Soon-ish.”

Mendoza had to figure out the final three-plus innings of a tight contest with probably just two high-leverage relievers, Diekman and Reed Garrett. That led to his first big call: leaving in righthander Christian Scott to face Luis Garcia Jr. with two on and two out in the bottom of the sixth.

With Scott’s pitch count nearing triple digits — the most he had thrown in a game in more than a year — the Mets tried to sneak out of him one more out for a sparkling six innings. But Garcia tagged him for a three-run home run, turning what was looking like a blowout into a one-run game.

Scott finished 5 2/3 innings with four runs allowed in his return to the majors.

“I gotta make a better pitch,” Scott said of the sweeping slider to Garcia that he wanted inside but instead ended up over the plate.

Mendoza said: “Probably a pitch that he wishes he had back, because he was pretty good all the way to that point. We pushed him a little bit there, but we were trying to squeeze another out and (had) a little bit of wiggle room, up four.”

After Adam Ottavino finished the sixth and began the seventh, retiring all three of his batters, Mendoza called on Diekman. Plan A: Diekman would finish the seventh and at least begin the eighth.

That didn’t work out. CJ Abrams fell behind, 0-and-2, but worked a 10-pitch walk. Lane Thomas brought him in with a double to leftfield, Abrams flying around from first as the tying run. James Wood, perhaps the top prospect in baseball, followed with a go-ahead single grounded up the middle.

The Nats (40-46) went ahead for good. The advantage the Mets had built via home runs from Tyrone Taylor, Mark Vientos and Francisco Lindor off lefthander Mitchell Parker (six innings, five runs) was gone.

“They grind out at-bats and make you hurt yourself,” Diekman said. “And it snowballs.”

In a version of this game and recent days in which the Mets had their closer, lots would’ve been different. Maybe Diaz would’ve been penciled in for the ninth. Maybe Garrett would have pitched less lately and perhaps been available for an inning or more. Scott almost certainly would’ve been pulled earlier.

But in reality, none of that happened. The Mets are 5-3 during Diaz’s ban and 42-42 overall.

Mendoza didn’t have a lot of options to choose from.

“If I’ll take Scott out of there and it doesn’t work — those are some of the decisions I make as a manager,” he said. “Other than that, I feel like no regrets on any of the other decisions.”

Scott said: “I’m grateful that Carlos gave me the opportunity right there to go out and try to finish the sixth. Hopefully the next time he gives me the opportunity, I’ll pick him up.”

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.