Mets’ defensive blunders too much to overcome in series-opening loss to Phillies
PHILADELPHIA— The Mets continue to say that a winning streak is in sight. They went on to lose 5-1 in the first game of a three-game set at Citizens Bank Park. Brandon Nimmo failed to get to a pop-up against the Yankees in the Subway Series last week and rookie left-hander Josh Walker received the loss because of it.
PHILADELPHIA — The Mets continue to say that a winning streak is in sight. They insist they will get better.
But nothing has been better.
Two missed popups, an error and a wild pitch cost the Mets a total of five runs Friday night against the Philadelphia Phillies. They went on to lose 5-1 in the first game of a three-game set at Citizens Bank Park. As a result of those missed fly balls, Kodai Senga (6-5) took the loss, in what was otherwise a solid outing.
These uncharacteristic miscues no longer seem out of character. Lindor made a costly error in Pittsburgh two weeks ago. Brandon Nimmo failed to get to a pop-up against the Yankees in the Subway Series last week and rookie left-hander Josh Walker received the loss because of it.
The Mets, desperate to stop this skid, may be trying to do too much.
“My errors that I have made this year have been thinking what I was going to do next before I had the baseball in my hand. So yeah, I’ll put some of that into trying to do things a little harder than what we need to be doing. I’ve got to do a better job of staying in the moment and not trying to make something happen when it isn’t there.”
Walker, again, was the recipient of bad defense behind him. Trailing 2-0 with one out in the sixth inning, the Mets (34-41) went to the bullpen after Bryson Stott and Alec Bohm took back-to-back singles off Senga. Walker got Marsh to pop up to shallow left field. Lindor called for it, but dropped to his knee at the last second, letting it go for Tommy Pham, who assumed it wasn’t his ball.
It fell next to the two and scored Stott to give the Phillies (39-36) a 3-1 lead.
“That one is on me,” Lindor said. “I usually tell my outfielders, ‘I’m going until I hear you. I’m going all the way until I hear you call me off.’ I went back, he never said anything because that’s usually what I say — ‘I’m going until I hear you.’ I hear the crowd getting louder and louder and louder, so I’m assuming I’m getting closer. It was on me, I should have taken full charge of the ball.”
Then, the Mets found themselves in a sudden downpour. Walker struggled to grip the baseball. He got Edmundo Sosa to line out to Pham, but nearly hit leadoff man Kyle Schwarber in the head and needed a towel before continuing the at-bat. He walked Schwarber to load the bases and the Mets brought in right-hander Jeff Brigham to face Trea Turner, who sliced a single through the left side of the infield to score Bohm and Marsh and give Philadelphia a 5-1 lead.
Nimmo dropped the first ball hit to him in the top of the first. It was a shallow flare by Schwarber and was ruled an error. Senga then threw one wild to advance Schwarber and walked Turner to bring up Bryce Harper.
The two-time NL MVP popped up to shallow left field and neither Pham nor third baseman Brett Baty could get to. It scored two to put the Mets in an early hole.
“I just didn’t get the best jump on it,” Nimmo said. “It was a big swing and the ball was more shallow than I thought. Once I got to it, I called it and knew that I was going to have be somewhere in between sliding to get it and staying it up. It went off the end of my glove and got away from me.”
The first-inning woes continue to persist with the Mets having been outscored 56-21 in the opening frames this season.
“Really unfortunate because it obviously snowballed into the two runs in that inning,” Nimmo said.
Only two of the four runs allowed by Senga were earned. He allowed five hits, struck out six and walked three over 5 1/3 innings. Walker was charged with one earned run.
“He deserved better tonight,” manager Buck Showalter said of Senga. “A lot better.”
The rookie right-hander from Japan did not fault his teammates for the loss.
“In this league, the team that makes the least number of mistakes wins,” Senga said. “As for myself, I miss locations, I walk batters — those are mistakes I’ve made. I know there were a couple mistakes on the field, but each one of us needs to reflect back on the types of mistakes we made and make sure they don’t happen again.”
Nimmo provided the only run for the visitors with a solo homer off former Mets right-hander Taijuan Walker (8-3) in the third, his eighth of the season.
Edurado Escobar was traded in the middle of the game, which doesn’t necessarily mean that the Mets are already to start selling ahead of the trade deadline, but it does mean that more changes will come if things do not, in fact, get better.
“We’ve said it enough times,” said shortstop Francisco Lindor. “We’ve just got to do it now. We have to do it. We have to get it done.”
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