The Mets struggled offensively in Wednesday’s loss to the Milwaukee Brewers but they kept the game close in the late innings until what the team felt was a missed call blew the game wide open.
Down just 3-2 in the eighth inning, reliever Adam Ottavino came in with one out looking to keep it a one-run deficit. After getting the first batter he faced out, it looked like the veteran right-hander would sit the Brewers down in order.
A double and a walk later, Ottavino found himself in some trouble. With Joey Wiemer up, Ottavino threw an 0-1 sinker that got away from him and hit the outfielder in the hand.
While Wiemer was awarded first base, Ottavino and manager Buck Showalter were visibly upset with the call. They thought Wiemer swung as he was hit, which would have been a strike.
“[I was told he] Didn’t swing. Pretty obvious he did,” Showalter said after the game. “Surprised two guys missed it.”
“It’s tough. I thought I made a good pitch there. I thought I had an 0-2 count. Instead, I had a guy on base and had to face [Christian] Yelich there. It was obviously tough,” Ottavino said after the game. “I know he swung. Ron [Kulpa] is a veteran umpire. I’m just going to assume he wasn’t watching. He can make that call. I don’t know what happened there. I’m pretty sure the home plate umpire knew it and decided to check it to make double sure. Sometimes it goes that way. You can’t change it.”
After the call, Ottavino had to face Yelich with the bases loaded. The outfielder already had two hits entering the at-bat and he would pick up his third, a single under the glove of Jeff McNeil to score two and put the game away. It also led Showalter to his second ejection in four days as the Mets fell back to eight games below .500.
Although the call didn’t go the Mets’ way, both Showalter and Ottavino believe they had an opportunity to overcome it but just couldn’t.
“Easy things like that you can overcome but that wasn’t the only thing,” Showalter said. “We could have done some things to overcome that.”
“You gotta overcome stuff. Good teams overcome stuff,” Ottavino said. “We’re not overcoming stuff. I had a chance to get Yelich out there. Could have overcome it, didn’t overcome it.”
The Mets will look to put Wednesday’s loss behind them and split the four-game series with the Brewers on Thursday.