Mets' starter woes bleed into late innings as skid hits 7

MILWAUKEE -- Entering a tie ballgame with two outs and two on in the bottom of the eighth inning Sunday, Edwin Díaz threw Brewers third baseman Anthony Seigler upper-90 mph four-seamers on five of six offerings, inducing an inning-ending lineout.

Still on the mound to start the bottom of the ninth, Díaz went back to the fastball on his first four pitches to Milwaukee left fielder Isaac Collins. Then, after working a 2-2 count, he shook off another fastball call from Francisco Alvarez. He had his mind set on a slider.

However, Díaz’s pitch stayed over the heart of the plate, and he could only watch as Collins drove it over the right-field wall for a walk-off home run.

“I just wanted to throw my slider down in the zone, try to make him chase,” said Díaz, who’d allowed just one earned run over his previous 34 appearances. “I just missed it. [Alvarez] was calling fastball, I [shook] it. Next time, we follow him.”

With the walk-off blast, the Mets suffered a sweep-clinching loss, 7-6, to the Brewers at American Family Field, their 11th defeat in 12 games and seventh in a row.

A lead in the National League East that reached 5 1/2 games in mid-June is now a 5 1/2-game deficit. Their hold on the final NL Wild Card spot is now down to just 1 1/2 games over the Reds.

“We haven't played well for quite a bit now, and that's what happens,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “We can't be looking at the standings. We got to start getting the job done. That simple.”

New York scored the first five runs of the game to take an early lead. In the fourth, though, Milwaukee got to Sean Manaea. Catcher William Contreras hit a leadoff home run, and the Brewers scored twice more before Manaea escaped with a two-run lead.

But he only lasted a batter into the fifth, allowing a leadoff single before Mendoza turned to Reed Garrett. The move didn’t work out. Contreras was the next batter, and he homered again to cut the lead to one.

Ryan Helsley later allowed the tying run in the bottom of the eighth, setting the stage for Collins’ walk-off an inning later.

It was another short outing for a Mets starter, continuing a trend that’s lasted for two months.

On June 7, Clay Holmes tossed six innings of one-run ball. Since then, David Peterson is the only starter who’s completed at least six innings. That’s a stretch of 53 games.

Regardless of who it’s been during this stretch, most of the rotation just hasn’t been providing enough length. Mendoza certainly understands that, saying, “We got to get our starters going.”

Paul Blackburn and Tylor Megill are both on the mend and could help solve some issues. New York could also bring up an arm like Nolan McLean (Mets' No. 3 prospect, No. 63 on MLB Pipeline’s Top 100) or Brandon Sproat (No. 5 in Mets' system, per Pipeline).

Whoever it is, the rotation (outside of Peterson) just has to figure out how to give the team more length.

“I don't think we'd close the door on anything right now,” president of baseball operations David Stearns said Friday. “Especially as we get into the second half of the month, into September, where you have a little more roster flexibility, you have the extra pitcher, I think it opens up a variety of different possibilities.

“We're in early August, and that is well into the season. We're in a pennant race. There's also a lot of baseball left. A lot of things are going to happen over the next month and a half, and we're going to put our roster and our pitching staff in the position to best help us going forward.”

It’s overall been a frustrating run as the losses pile up. Since reaching a season-high 21 games above .500 on June 12, the Mets have gone 18-31.

Everyone from Stearns to Mendoza to the players believes they can get back on track. Even during this disappointing weekend, that was a common statement around the team.

At the end of the day, those are only words until a turnaround actually happens.

“We got to go out and do it,” Mendoza said. “We're going to keep saying it, but the bottom line is: We got to go out and do it. … I know it's tough right now. It's very frustrating. We're all very frustrated, but you got to keep going. We got to keep going. Nobody said it was going to be easy.”