Mets Lose Lindor And Inexplainable Game To Pirates

The New York Mets first game out of the break was a completely unmitigated disaster. To a certain extent, it was an embarrassment.

Against Chad Kuhl and the Pittsburgh Pirates bullpen, the Mets kept threatening and faltering. In fact, this team was 0-for-12 with RISP. That’s only part of the story.

In three straight innings, they drew lead-off walks. They had runners on first and second three straight innings. They had eight different men in scoring position.

Just one of them scored. It was Pete Alonso on a Jonathan Villar RBI fielder’s choice in the fourth. That wasn’t enough run support for Marcus Stroman.

Stroman didn’t have his best stuff, and he was fighting it in more ways than one.

His toughest inning was the second. The Pirates loaded the bases against him with one out, and then the rains came. There was roughly a half hour rain delay.

He’d strike out Kuhl, but he’d allow a two RBI single to Adam Frazier giving the Pirates a 2-0 lead. After that Ke’Bryan Hayes hit one up the middle making Stroman look like Charlie Brown. Stroman escaped the inning without any further damage.

That damage would come later. The fifth inning would be as bizarre and damaging an inning as we’ve seen. It started with Francisco Lindor leaving with an apparent oblique injury.

In the bottom of the inning, we’d see Stromsn retire John Nogowski to get out of a tough jam to leave the game at 2-1. Stroman celebrated, and Nogowski thought he was tougher than Stroman.

Stroman couldn’t get to Nogowski because James McCann wouldn’t let him. We’d see Stroman bent over and run off the field. Apparently, he was alright as he back to the dugout to chirp Nogowski.

This was all well and good, but Stroman and the Mets took the loss. The 2-1 deficit grew to 4-1 when Drew Smith and Jeurys Familia each surrendered long homers.

It was another ugly, inexplicable, and unacceptable loss to a very bad Pirates team. They now loss three out of five to the Pirates, and worse yet, they’ve lost their best position player.

Game Notes: Gary Thorne came back to do play-by-play with Gary Cohen on vacation. Billy McKinney was designated for assignment to make room for J.D. Davis on the roster. Luis Guillorme replaced Lindor at short.

page top