Mets’ home winning streak, home shutout streak end in blowout loss to Brewers

Coming into tonight’s game, the Mets were enjoying a nine-game winning streak at Citi Field that stretched back to May 18, the night Max Scherzer went down with his oblique injury. The team also entered play having not given up a run at home since the sixth inning of their Memorial Day victory against the Nationals, a stretch spanning 30 innings. Both of those streaks ended emphatically tonight, as New York fell by a 10-2 score to the Brewers.

The scoreless inning streak ended early, as David Peterson exhibited a familiar lack of command in the first and put his team behind before they got a chance to bat. After retiring Christian Yelich to begin the game, Willy Adames roped a double to put a runner in scoring position. The left-hander then plunked Andrew McCutchen and Hunter Renfroe in almost the exact same spot—the most accurate Peterson was all evening—which loaded the bases with one out for Milwaukee and set up Luis Urias, who hit a two-run single to give the Brewers a lead they would never relinquish. Peterson did bounce back and strike out Keston Hiura and Victor Caratini to limit the damage.

The Mets threatened early against Burnes as they tried to claw their way back into the ballgame. Brandon Nimmo and Starling Marte singled to put runners on first and second with nobody out and the heart of the order coming up. However, the Mets could not capitalize, and they ended up missing their shot after Francisco Lindor struck out, Pete Alonso popped out, and Jeff McNeil grounded out. Burnes calmed down after that, setting down 11 consecutive batters until a McNeil solo homer with two outs in the fourth inning.

Peterson settled in after his rough first and put up innings in the second and third. He ran into trouble in the fourth, however, and allowed another run to score, which his team could ill afford. Caratini led off with a single, and Lorenzo Cain singled to put runners on the corners. Mark Mathias hit a double play ball, but McNeil threw it away as a run scored and Mathias ended up safe at first. Peterson was able to induce a double play from Yelich to limit the damage, but with Burnes on the mound, the deficit felt insurmountable.

Peterson stuck around until the fifth, but an Adames lead-off single ended his night early. In came Jake Reed, who fanned the flames immediately. He walked Renfroe after recording an out (and making an throwing error to advance Renfroe), hit Hiura after recording a second out, and issued another free pass to Caratini to force in a run. Cain then hit a dribbler up the middle that Reed deflected and Lindor couldn’t handle cleanly, which brought home Milwaukee’s fifth run. Pinch hitter Jace Peterson broke the game wide open with a two-run double to center that made it 7-1 and chased Reed from the game.

If you thought that’s where the misery ended, you would be sorely mistaken, dear reader. Because Trevor Williams didn’t stop the bleeding so much as he tore the cut wide open. Immediately after entering and issuing an intentional free pass to Yelich, he gave up a two-run single to Adames and a run-scoring single to McCutchen, which made it 10-1. After Renfroe walked, the inning finally concluded with a Urias strikeout after what was about 30 minutes but felt like an eternity.

It was at this point in the evening that I am sure most of you who are reading this frantically reached for the remote and hurried to change the channel to save yourself from wasting the remainder of your evening. And it is my role as the recapper here to tell you that nothing else of note really happened the rest of the game, with the exception of Starling Marte being hit on the right wrist and exiting with what was eventually diagnosed as a contusion. Luckily, Marte seemed to have avoided the worst of it and is simply listed as day-to-day. In that sixth inning, McNeil drove home the second run of the game for New York, but he ran the team right out of the inning trying to stretch his single into a double. That was the rest of the offense for New York

The game plodded along from there until it mercifully ended at 10:23 p.m. Eastern Time. With the Braves recording their 14th consecutive victory, the Mets’ lead in the NL East was cut to four games, which is the tightest the division has been since New York’s lead was a mere three games back on May 2. New York also failed once again in their quest to reach the 20-games-over-.500 mark for the first time this year.

The Mets will look try to start a new home winning streak tomorrow as they host the Brewers in the rubber match of the series. Tylor Megill will get the ball opposite left-hander Aaron Ashby.

Box scores

MLB
ESPN

Win Probability Added

Fangraphs.com

What’s WPA?

Big Mets winner: Jeff McNeil, 4.4% WPA
Big Mets loser: David Peterson, -19.0% WPA
Mets pitchers: -38.4% WPA
Mets hitters: -11.6% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Jeff McNeil fourth inning homer, 8.8% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Luis Urias two-run single in the first inning, -13.0% WPA.

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