The Mets’ offense went ice cold in sunny San Diego as they lost to the Padres, 3-1, putting an end to their six-game win streak.
Here are the takeaways…
– Blake Snell, who came into this game having allowed four earned runs over his last eight starts spanning 47 innings, continued that trend on Saturday and looked sharp from his first pitch. He struck out two in the first inning, three in the second and two more in the third for a total of seven strikeouts the first time through the batting order.
– After a two-out walk to Mark Canha in the third, Snell allowed an infield single to Brandon Nimmo that brought up Tommy Pham who grounded out to end the inning. Nimmo’s hit was the only hit surrendered by Snell in his six innings of work. The left-handed pitcher struck out 11 on 105 pitches (61 strikes) and now has 132 strikeouts in 98 innings this season.
– Despite his dominance, Snell found trouble in the sixth inning after walking Nimmo and Pham with one out, appearing to wear down a bit. With Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso due up, Snell induced a lineout and groundout to end his night with his team on top, 3-0.
– The Padres scored all three of those runs in the second inning off David Peterson who made his third start since being recalled from Triple-A. The inning began with a leadoff double to former Met Gary Sanchez and a single to Jake Cronenworth that put runners on the corners. In a somewhat strange play, Brandon Dixon hit a fly ball to right field that looked like Starling Marte would catch, but Marte let the ball drop which scored the game’s first run, however Marte did manage to get a force out at second base.
– The play proved a bit moot a batter later as Matthew Batten, making his season debut, hit a two-run shot in his first at-bat of the season that gave San Diego a 3-0 lead. The home run was the first of Batten’s career, who only had 19 at-bats prior to the homer.
Peterson finished off the rest of the inning unscathed, but the damage had already been done. Aside from his one bad inning, Peterson pitched well for a third straight start, going 5.1 innings and striking out seven while walking two. Still, he took his seventh loss of the season.
– Leading off the seventh inning, with Snell now out of the game, Francisco Alvarez continued his stellar road trip and hit his 17th home run of the season off Luis Garcia. Alvarez has now hit four home runs in his last five games – all on the road – and is hitting .455 in the month of July.
Unfortunately for the Mets, that was the extent of their offense on Saturday. Lindor gave the team some hope in the ninth inning with a leadoff single off Josh Haderbut he was stranded there as New York suffered its first loss in over a week.
– Brett Baty made a mistake in the fifth inning after getting on base due to catcher’s interference. On a ball in the dirt to Canha that trickled not too far from Sanchez, Baty broke for second base but was thrown out to end the inning, gifting Snell and the Padres an out on a night Snell didn’t need any help.
– After a restful few days, New York’s bullpen pitched 2.2 perfect innings, including four strikeouts. The trio included Dominic Leone, Grant Hartwig and newcomer Trevor Gott.
Highlights
What’s next
The Mets and Padres play the final game before the All-Star break on Sunday afternoon. First pitch is set for 4:10 pm
RHP Max Scherzer (8-2, 4.03 ERA) gets the start, opposed by RHP Joe Musgrove (7-2, 3.56 ERA).