The massive crowd was energized for the Mets’ first recreation after the All-Star break. Max Scherzer was on the mound and the crew had simply made a commerce, buying designated hitter Daniel Vogelbach from the Pirates.
A giant night time appeared imminent. The one downside: The opposing pitcher.
The Mets by no means hit in opposition to Yu Darvish, and so they had no probability of their newest encounter. The Padres right-hander was dominant, tossing seven innings of one-run ball to finest Scherzer and ship the Mets to their second straight loss, 4-1, in entrance of 36,855 at Citi Subject.
“He was having fast innings there within the first a part of the sport and it was sort of a time of possession factor the place I used to be grinding by the primary few innings and he was very environment friendly,” Scherzer mentioned after the Mets’ NL East lead over the Braves was trimmed to 1 ¹/₂ video games. “That’s a troublesome state of affairs to pitch in. Often I prefer to be on the opposite facet of that, forcing the opposite pitcher to grind.”
Darvish has now confronted the Mets twice this yr, and has allowed one run over 14 innings in a pair of straightforward victories. Throughout his 10-year main league profession, the righty has by no means misplaced to the Mets and owns a 2.56 lifetime ERA in opposition to them in eight begins.
The futile offensive efficiency adopted an anemic near the primary half of the season by which the Mets managed simply eight runs during the last three video games of a sequence with the woeful Cubs.
Eric Hosmer — who almost got here to the Mets in a spring-training commerce — produced the sport’s first two runs within the fourth inning, lacing a 2-1, 94-mph fastball over the wall in left-center area for his seventh house of the season. It was the slumping first baseman’s second extra-base hit of the month — the opposite got here in his first at-bat — and his first homer since June 23.
“Huge blow at that time,” Scherzer mentioned.
Scherzer did nicely to restrict the Padres to 2 runs over six innings. He pitched round a Pete Alonso error within the third, retiring the highest three hitters within the San Diego lineup after the primary two batters had reached base. Scherzer allowed 5 hits, walked one and struck out eight to maneuver previous Curt Schilling (3,116) and Bob Gibson (3,117) into fifteenth place on MLB’s all-time strikeouts checklist with 3,118.
“I’ll converse to Bob Gibson,” Scherzer mentioned. “That was my dad’s favourite pitcher. I’m positively going to present that ball to him. For me as a child rising up, he was certainly one of my Idol’s. I did e-book experiences on him left and proper.”
Pitching wasn’t the issue Friday night time for the Mets. Darvish, and their unproductive bats, had been. The Mets hardly ever squared him up. They expanded the zone and took strikes. He stored them off steadiness all night time, a lot the best way he did the primary time he confronted them this season.
“It was extra of an evening that the beginning pitcher was on high of their recreation,” supervisor Buck Showalter mentioned. “We couldn’t discover our footing.”
The Padres put the sport away within the seventh by scoring two runs off Joely Rodriguez, with some assist from catcher Patrick Mazeika, who dropped a foul popup hit by Manny Machado.
The Mets averted the shutout within the house half of the seventh when Luis Guillorme drilled a two-out double to the wall in right-center area to plate Jeff McNeil with their lone run of the night time. However they didn’t mount an additional risk over the ultimate two innings.
“We scored one run,” Showalter mentioned. “Robust to win.”
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