BOSTON — It might not be over for the Mets yet, but it’s certainly starting to feel like it.
Carlos Carrasco turned in another brutal start in a 6-1 loss to the Boston Red Sox on Sunday night at Fenway Park. The veteran right-hander couldn’t even make it through the third inning. It would have been much worse if it weren’t for left fielder Mark Canha, who made three outfield assists, including two to save runs in the first and third innings.
The Red Sox (52-47) took the series, 2-1, and the Mets (46-53), who are desperate to save their season before the Aug. 1 trade deadline, dropped their fifth game since the All-Star break.
Carrasco is searching for answers once again.
“I think nothing. I don’t know,” Carrasco said. “I just went out there and threw strikes and they got me. There’s nothing I can do about it. I was throwing strikes in the zone, they just got me. I got a lot of ground balls, but it is what it is.”
The 35-year-old Carrasco has shown flashes of what he used to look like this season, but overall, he hasn’t been able to sustain any sort of success from start to start. Carrasco is not alone in this — Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, David Peterson and Tylor Megill are all trying to figure out why they have pitched to the same pattern. Carrasco (3-4) threw eight scoreless innings against the Arizona Diamondbacks in his last start before the break. A new slider grip helped in his best performance of the season.
But that start looks like an outlier when you look at the rest of his outings this season. Between the bone spurs in his elbow and the abbreviated outings, it’s been a tough year for the righty called Cookie.
“I’m trying to find myself every day in there,” he said. “I don’t know. Maybe I still need to work a little more on my pitches or on my delivery. I’m just trying to (do) the same thing I did in Arizona.”
The Red Sox hit Carrasco hard right from the start. Jarren Duran smoked a single to center that was registered as 105.6 MPH off the bat. The Mets erased that when Mark Canha threw him out at home. Carrasco and Duran collided on the play and the pitcher appeared shaken up. He turned his ankle, but the sting quickly wore off and he said it did not affect him the rest of the outing.
“He wasn’t very crisp. It was a struggle for him from the get-go,” said manager Buck Showalter. “Certainly, the play at third base didn’t help, but he was kind of challenged before that too. With a doubleheader yesterday, we were pretty short in the bullpen. We were trying to get every out we could get out of him to keep us from putting some guys in harm’s way.”
Boston came away with a 1-0 lead in the first and Carrasco gave up more hard contact in the second. Typically, that’s an indicator that the pitcher is losing control. He lost all of it in the third when he gave up six straight hits and two runs before the Mets went to the bullpen for Drew Smith. The only out came from another outfield assist by Canha.
Smith could not immediately stop the bleeding. He allowed two of Carrasco’s inherited runners to score with an RBI single and a wild pitch. Carrasco was tagged for five earned runs on 10 hits over 2 1/3 innings. He walked two and struck out two.
Meanwhile, the Red Sox emptied their bullpen. With a limited rotation, Boston was forced to play a staff day. Seven pitchers limited the Mets to only a single run, which came in the sixth inning off right-hander Chris Murphy (1-0) via an RBI single by Francisco Lindor. The Mets had runners on second and third in the eighth but Daniel Vogelbach struck out on 12 pitches.
There were a few bright spots this weekend in Boston: Pete Alonso and Jeff McNeil looked more like their old selves at the plate, the bullpen threw some big innings and Canha threw out runners at second, third and home to become the first Mets outfielder to record three assists in a game since Endy Chavez in 2006.