NEW YORK -- A surprise nomination for one of baseball's best offenses so far this season, the Brewers continued chugging along Wednesday despite the presence of one of the National League's top pitchers. Eric Thames homered to spark a seven-run attack against Jacob deGrom, leading Milwaukee to a 7-1 win over the Mets at Citi Field.
Homering for the first time in 16 games, Thames reached base in each of his three plate appearances against deGrom, tallying a pair of extra-base hits. Teammate Eric Sogard created even more traffic on the bases, walking three times and singling once in his first four trips to the plate. Keon Broxton added a solo homer in the third, his sixth home run of the season.
Though he managed to finish the fourth inning, deGrom finished with one of the worst statistical lines of his career: seven runs on eight hits with five walks. It marked the first time in deGrom's career that he allowed at least seven earned runs and did not complete five innings.

"I was just bad tonight -- honestly, terrible," deGrom said. "I couldn't throw the ball where I wanted to. … Tonight's on me. I couldn't keep our team in position to win."
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Far more efficient was Brewers starter Junior Guerra, who blanked the Mets through six. Allowing four hits and three walks, Guerra retired eight of the final nine batters he faced.

The Mets barely avoided being shut out for the second time this season when Michael Conforto's ninth-inning double scored Juan Lagares from first with two outs.
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MOMENTS THAT MATTERED
Deep and way gone: Thames had gone a season-high 63 consecutive plate appearances without a home run when he jumped on a hanging deGrom changeup in the first inning, launching it a projected 436 feet into Citi Field's visiting bullpen to give the Brewers a 2-0 lead. At 108.7 mph off the bat, per Statcast™, the two-run homer was Thames' longest and hardest-hit of the year.
Piling on: In both the first and fourth innings, Sogard took advantage of deGrom's wildness to spark a Brewers rally. Sogard's one-out walk in the fourth made him the first of five consecutive Milwaukee batters to reach base -- including Hernan Perez, who highlighted the rally with a two-run single. The Brewers scored four runs in the inning, extending their lead to 7-0.

QUOTABLE
"You have no idea. After the home run, I almost dropped to my knees. That's what it feels like to hit a barrel!" -- Thames, on the feeling of his home run
SOUND SMART WITH YOUR FRIENDS
Conforto's ninth-inning double extended his home hitting streak to 12 games. It had been more than two years since a Mets player last strung together a double-digit hitting streak at Citi FIeld: Lagares hit in 14 straight from April 13-May 3, 2015.

NOT QUITE A CHALLENGE
The Mets' best chance to work their way back into the game came in the seventh inning, when they loaded the bases with one out against Brewers reliever Jared Hughes. Jay Bruce followed with an inning-ending double play, prompting Mets manager Terry Collins to spend several moments on the top step of the dugout, deciding if he should challenge. Eventually, Collins attempted to, but crew chief Fieldin Culbreth denied his request, leading to a brief on-field argument between the two.
Collins said he was lobbying for more time beyond the 30 seconds that Major League Baseball's rulebook allots managers, because he was deciding which play to challenge: a neighborhood call at second base or whether Bruce beat the relay at first.
"They said I used up the time," Collins said. "You can only roll up the video as fast as you can possibly roll it up."

WHAT'S NEXT
Brewers: Fresh off a no-hit bid, Chase Anderson will start for Milwaukee in the series finale against the Mets on Thursday at 12:10 p.m. CT at Citi Field. Anderson held the D-backs hitless for seven innings and will look to replicate that performance.
Mets: Easily the Mets' most consistent pitcher in May, Zack Wheeler went five or six innings in each of his starts, allowing three or fewer runs in all of them. He'll look to continue that run into June, kicking off the month in a 1:10 p.m. ET series finale at Citi Field.
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