Mets earn first win of season with ninth-inning comeback vs. Tigers to split doubleheader
Mets’ Pete Alonso and Zack Short congratulate Tyrone Taylor after he hit a walk-off single to win Game Two 2-1 of an MLB doubleheader baseball game against the Detroit Tigers at Citi Field on Thursday, April 4, 2024. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Just win, baby!
The Mets finally did that after starting 0-5 under new manager Carlos Mendoza with a 2-1 comeback victory over the Tigers in the second game of a doubleheader on Thursday at Citi Field after dropping the opener, 6-3, in 11 innings.
Trailing 1-0 entering the ninth inning of Game 2 and with no hits other than Harrison Bader’s eighth-inning leadoff single, the Mets were staring at another awful loss.
Instead, they got an inspiring win, and Mendoza got what he called a “beer, champagne, eggs” shower in the jubilant post game clubhouse — so much messy celebrating that Mendoza had to shower before he met the media.
Eggs? Guess you had to be there.
Pete Alonso led off the ninth with a tying home run off Detroit’s Alex Faedo. Brett Baty walked, was sacrificed to second by Starling Marte, and scored the winning run on Tyrone Taylor’s single down the leftfield line.
“Nice to get the first one, finally,” Mendoza said. “Wish I had them earlier. But it’s baseball. About to get swept there in a doubleheader, seems like not much going on offensively and that last inning, Pete with a homer, then a walk and then Taylor. It feels good, obviously, to get the first one out of the way.”
Said Alonso: “It was really fun. We definitely needed that one.”
Taylor, after his first career walkoff RBI, said: “I’m just happy to help the team win and happy we got the first one out of the way. Hopefully, now we get on a roll here.”
Overall, the Mets did not get a hit from a two-out single by Baty in the fifth inning of Game 1 until Bader’s check-swing floater in front of a charging Mark Canha.
The Mets went 2-for-17 with runners in scoring position in Game 1. Brandon Nimmo, Francisco Lindor and Jeff McNeil went a combined 0-for-16 and are 3-for-60 (.050) in the first six games.
Thursday’s announced paid attendance of 15,020 was the lowest non-COVID crowd at Citi Field since the building opened in 2009. The next-lowest is the 16,853 that attended Monday’s game. The Mets had never before drawn fewer than 19,617 to a non-COVID game at Citi Field.
In 2005, Willie Randolph — also a first-time manager — lost his first five games before the Mets ripped off a six-game winning streak. The club finished 83-79.
The 1962 Mets lost their first nine games under future Hall of Fame manager Casey Stengel. But those Mets were an expansion club.
Matt Manning no-hit the Mets for 5 2⁄3 innings in the nightcap and reliever Tyler Holton took the no-hitter into the eighth.
Mets Game 2 starter Jose Butto, who was added as the 27th man for the doubleheader, allowed one run in six innings (three hits, three walks, six strikeouts).
In the opener, the Mets led 3-0 after five innings, but watched that lead disappear once Mendoza removed Adrian Houser after the righthander threw 67 pitches in his Mets debut.
Houser, whom the Mets acquired in the offseason from Milwaukee, left after allowing a walk and hit to the first two batters of the sixth.
Both Mendoza and Houser pointed to the fact that the righthander was supposed to pitch on Tuesday (the game was rained out) and that he hadn’t faced major-league batters in a game since a five-inning spring training outing on March 15 as to why he was on a shorter leash than you’d expect.
Brooks Raley came in and gave up a sacrifice fly to Andy Ibanez to make it 3-1 (the run charged to Houser). The Tigers moved to within 3-2 in the seventh when Jake Diekman threw a run-scoring wild pitch. Adam Ottavino gave up a tying home run to Riley Greene in the eighth.
The Mets had taken a 3-0 lead on Francisco Alvarez’s two-run double in the third and Baty’s RBI single in the fifth.
After neither team scored with a ghost runner in the 10th, the Tigers scored three runs in the 11th against Michael Tonkin. Colt Keith plated the go-ahead run with a double and former Yankee Gio Urshela made it 6-3 with a two-run single.
It was the second straight nightmare extra-inning outing for Tonkin. He gave up five unearned runs to the Tigers in Monday’s 5-0, 10-inning Mets loss.
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
