MILWAUKEE — The Mets are officially on life support.
Through three games of the most important road trip of the season, the Mets have gone 0-3 and haven’t led once. They couldn’t hit water from a boat Saturday against the Milwaukee Brewers. Left-hander Jose Quintana saw his scoreless innings streak come to an end at 25 2/3 innings as the Mets were shut out in a 6-0 loss at American Family Field.
With the Brewers having already clinched the NL Central, they turned to their bullpen to cover nine innings. Five relievers blanked the Mets, with the Amazins’ managing only two hits.
“Can’t win a game with two hits,” said first baseman Pete Alonso. “They pitched really well today. And yeah, offense, we didn’t do our part.”
They only had one real chance to score, which came in the fifth inning against Tobias Myers. The right-hander gave up a leadoff double to Starling Marte. The outfielder reached third base on a ground ball out, but the next two hitters went down quickly and quietly.
Myers earned the win in relief (9-6), throwing four innings of one-hit ball, striking out five.
Facing left-hander Aaron Ashby in the top of the seventh, Alonso drove one to the warning track with one out, but it came just short of leaving the park, falling into the glove of left fielder Issac Collins for the out. Alonso thought the ball was going out, but it was too high.
That was it. That was the most offense the Mets could muster. In the middle of a heated playoff chase with a Wild Card spot on the line, the Mets swung early and often, much to no avail. They barely even put the ball in play.
“I don’t think it’s either getting it right or wrong. I just think that we need to just flat out execute,” Alonso said. “We had opportunities today to manufacture runs. We had guys on second with less than two outs and didn’t capitalize on that. Granted, they have great pitching staff, and everyone that they ran out there threw the ball really, really well. But we’re in the big leagues, we’re going to face good pitching every single day.”
Alonso makes a good point. The Brewers are a playoff team that boasts the best bullpen in the NL (3.12 ERA), and the Mets could face them again next week in the Wild Card, so if they want to advance in October, they have to figure out how to hit good pitching.
The Mets insist they aren’t pressing with the season on the line, though manager Carlos Mendoza understands that it looks that way.
“The reality is, we’re facing a pretty good pitching staff there, and especially when you’re pretty much facing a bullpen day,” Mendoza said. “That’s what they did. Guys are not seeing [pitchers] two times. Every time they go up to the plate, it’s a different arm, it’s a legit arm. So I’m not making excuses, I’m not going to say they’re panicking or they’re pressing…
“It’s just the reality is that we’re having a hard time getting things going right now.”
The Mets bullpen gave them a chance. Phil Maton relieved Quintana with the Mets down 2-0 and in the fifth and a runner on third. He struck out cleanup hitter Willy Adames to strand Jackson Chourio. The right-hander struck out the side in the sixth, one foul ball away from an immaculate inning. Ryne Stanek retired the side in order in the seventh.
But Reed Garrett struggled to contain the Brewers in the eighth. Garrett Mitchell led off with a single and swiped second. It was the ninth stolen base allowed by the Mets through only two games in Milwaukee this weekend, most of which have been consequential.
This one proved to be as well, as Mitchell would later score, opening the floodgates in four-run inning.
Brewers closer Devin Williams converted the save with a scoreless ninth.
Quintana’s scoreless inning streak was snapped in the fourth. He had given up hard contact early in the game but also got a lot of swings and misses, but the Brewers didn’t miss this time. With two out, he walked Isaac Collins to load the bases. With the count full, Joey Ortiz found a hole on the seventh pitch of the at-bat, scoring two.
Quintana went 4 1/3 innings, allowing five hits, two walks and nine strikeouts.
“I was really frustrated with that inning,” Quintana said. “Too many pitches. The issue was the walk to Collins. I have to do a better job there against Ortiz. He put a good swing on that breaking ball and it was soft contact, but that hurts. It hurts a lot giving up those two runs.”
In a cruel twist, former Mets catcher Travis d’Arnaud homered to help the Atlanta Braves walk off over the Kansas City Royals in Atlanta. The Mets (87-72) are now 1.0 games behind the Braves (88-71) in the NL Wild Card standings. However, the Arizona Diamondbacks lost again to keep the Mets in third place in the standings.
“It’s unfortunate that it’s happening right now, but all you can do is you just pick it up,” said outfielder Brandon Nimmo. “You go shoot your shots the next day and you hope that it turns around.”
Originally Published: September 28, 2024 at 10:03 p.m.