NEW YORK – It was a bad night for the Mets on Wednesday at Citi Field.
First, third baseman Bo Bichette injured his left ankle, then they suffered a tough 8-1 loss to the Brewers.
Bichette left the game in the top of the fifth inning after sustaining the injury.
With two outs and New York trailing, 4-0, in the bottom of the third, Bichette came to the plate against left-hander Robert Gasser and fouled the 3-1 pitch off the inside of his front ankle.
Bichette limped around a bit before he went back into the batter’s box, earning a walk on the next pitch.
He left the game in the top of the fifth inning, when Brett Baty shifted over from left field to third base. Christopher Morel came in off the bench to play left.
Bichette's X-rays came back negative.
“We’ll see where [Bichette] is when he wakes up in the morning," said interim manager Andy Green. "You never really know how the ankle is until the next day. I’m hoping he is fine.”
It was a game that saw right-hander Robert Stock have one of his worst starts of the season. He allowed seven runs on 10 hits and two walks in four innings, throwing 87 pitches.
Milwaukee plated its first four runs in the second, with Sal Frelick highlighting the scoring with a two-run single -- one of six consecutive singles by the Brewers.
Two frames later, Brice Turang put the game out of reach with a three-run homer.
“The challenge was, [the Brewers] are a really good team that put the ball in play,” Stock said. “When you face a team like that, it’s rolling the dice. They are going to put the ball in play. It’s on you to make your best pitches.”
It would not be surprising if Stock winds up out of the rotation. With the exception of his first outing for New York, Stock hasn’t made it through the fifth inning: through five starts, he has allowed 18 runs (17 earned) in 20 2/3 innings.
“We just finished up the game right now. We’ll talk about this [pitching staff] and see where our heads are at,” Green said. “He had some nice starts for us. This is another one I’m sure he would want back.”
The Mets were supposed to face Milwaukee right-hander Dustin May, but he left the game after one pitch in the first. The first pitch of the game came screaming back at him at 106 mph off the bat of Mets leadoff hitter A.J. Ewing, leading to May’s exit and bringing in left-hander Robert Gasser, who struck out six and allowed one run in 5 1/3 innings.
The way Green was talking, the Mets were not prepared to face the southpaw so early in the game. Gasser is the sixth man in Milwaukee’s rotation.
“[Gasser] is a low-slot lefty where the ball really rises,” Green said. “It was an interesting set of circumstances for them. Typically, when you lose your starter on the first pitch of the game, you get put in a much worse situation. They had Gasser [pitch] five days ago and he threw [79] pitches.
“[Today] was literally his [bullpen day]. Not often do you have a starter sitting in the 'pen to take the ball. … Our lineup was optimized to face the righty today. So you had a lot of matchups that favored Gasser. We didn’t flip it.”