Gut Reaction: Padres 4 Mets 3 (5/25/17)

Y’know, we always talk about the weather, but we never do anything about it. On this night, the Mets couldn’t do anything about the weather or the San Diego Padres and they were done in by both. The Mets dropped the rubber game of this series in desultory fashion, going down in a hail of runners left on base.

Jacob deGrom was supposed to pitch for the Mets, but an all-day soaking rain caused a shift in management’s thinking: on the very real chance that the game would be interrupted by a downpour, and not wanting to waste a deGrom start, it was decided to start Rafael Montero instead. It was a bad decision. By gametime, the rain had slackened to an annoying mist. Montero threw 87 pitches in three innings — yes, you read that right — 45 of which came in the first. With one out, Yangervis Solarte drew an eight-pitch walk. Will Myers followed with a base on balls of his own. Hunter Renfroe hit a painfully slow roller to short on which Jose Reyes had no play and the bases were loaded. Cory Spangenberg lined a base hit into left and the Padres led it, 1-0. After Montero struck out Austin Hedges, he surrendered his third walk of the inning to Matt Szczur and San Diego had a 2-0 lead.

The Mets got one back in the second, when Lucas Duda launched a long home run to right field off rookie right-hander Dinelson Lamet, making his MLB debut. Euphoria was short-lived, however, as the weather reared its head once again. Leading off the third, Renfroe lifted a lazy popup to Michael Conforto in left field. Right off the bat, Conforto couldn’t see it through the foggy murk and it dropped right next to the left field foul line, while Conforto was playing duck-and-cover. Renfroe wound up on second, was sacrificed over to third by Spangenberg and scored on a two-out base hit by Szczur. The score was 3-1, but somehow it felt like 8-1.

Paul Sewald replaced Montero in the fourth and did yeoman work, tossing three scoreless innings. Josh Edgin came on in the seventh and notched two scoreless frames of his own. On offense, the Mets kept getting runners on against Lamet, but couldn’t bring any of them around — it looked a lot like last year in that regard, actually. The got the leadoff man on in the third, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth and ended up with only one additional run to show for it. That run scored in the eighth, when Neil Walker led off with a booming double over Sczcur’s head and Duda grounded a single up the middle.

Addison Reed came on to hold the Padres in the ninth. He did not do that. Allen Cordoba led off with a single and with one out, Myers walked. Renfroe then sent a deep fly to right and Cordoba crossed over to third. Spangenberg slapped a line drive just past Duda’s leap, resulting in an RBI double and that bloody insurance run. It was needed, because in the bottom of the ninth, Juan Lagares drew a one-out walk. Conforto — having struck out four times, in addition to his meteorological problems — smacked a base hit into right, putting runners on first and third. Reyes hit big hopper to short, but the Padres couldn’t turn the double play and Lagares scored. That brought up Jay Bruce with a chance to win it, but he hit a weak pop foul outside third, which Spangenberg squeezed as he fell against the front of the stands.

It’ll be tough getting past the ignominy of dropping two-of-three to the worst team in the majors, but now it’s on to Pittsburgh to try and recover.