The New York Mets are in the thick of the NL wild-card race. Falling back on vintage “LOLMets” form won’t help them.
That’s pretty much what happened in their game against the Baltimore Orioles on Tuesday, starting with a swinging bunt by O’s third baseman Ramón UrÃas in the fourth inning that somehow resulted in a run scored.
Mets starting pitcher Jose Quintana and catcher Francisco Alvarez both ran for the ball down the first base line, with Alvarez gaining and striking out to make a wild barehanded play. The play did not work, as Alvarez only slightly deflected the ball as it fell to the ground.
Unfortunately for New York, Orioles rookie Colton Cowser started the game at second base. As he ran to third, he saw a completely empty home plate and took advantage of the opportunity.
Final result: a point scored for Baltimore, making it 4-1.
But that wasn’t all.
One batter later, Orioles catcher James McCann — a former Mets player who the team is still paying $8 million this season after opting out of his disastrous $40.6 million contract — hit a two-run homer against them.
The Mets came tantalizingly close to erasing all that. An eighth-inning rally, capped by a home run by J.D. Martinez, cut the Orioles’ lead to 7-5. Given Baltimore’s recent bullpen woes (they rank 28th in MLB in bullpen ERA over the past 30 days), that was a surmountable lead as the ninth inning turned at Citi Field.
But first there was the top of the ninth inning. Oh, how it happened.
With runners on first and second, the Mets went all out on the Little League defense to double the Orioles’ lead. It started with left fielder Brandon Nimmo diving and missing a fly ball and ended with pitcher Danny Young missing third base on a pitch to him.
The two errors gave the Orioles a 9-5 lead they would never relinquish.
You can’t just embarrass yourselves like that in front of Kevin James?
The loss moves the Mets’ season record to 65-61, 2.5 games behind the Atlanta Braves in the race for the final wild-card spot in the NL.
