The Mets' offense didn't do them any favors in their 2-1 extra innings loss to the Marlins on Wednesday night, but neither did the decisions made by manager Luis Rojas.
With the Mets and Marlins tied at 1-1 in the top of the 10th inning, Rojas opted to first pinch-hit Luis Guillorme for Kevin Pillar with a runner on third and two outs. After Guillorme walked, this brought up struggling catcher James McCann's spot, and Rojas chose to pinch-hit Patrick Mazeika, who stepped to the plate with a .200 batting average. Unfortunately, Mazeika couldn't come through, grounding one back to the pitcher to end the threat.
Another big play that got lost in the shuffle of this inning was when Javier Báez flew out down the right field line with the go-ahead run on second. Jesús Sanchez dropped the ball, which was initially ruled to be foul. The Mets challenged the ruling, which appeared to show that Sanchez dropped it in fair territory. However, the call was upheld and the Mets wound up not scoring in the frame.
Rojas was in disbelief that the call was not reversed based on what he saw.
"It's really hard to believe that it wasn't reversed to a fair ball," Rojas said.
This led us to the bottom of the 10th, where a sacrifice bunt allowed the Marlins to get the winning run over to third with one out. Luckily, Mets closer Edwin Diaz struck out Miguel Rojas, which brought up the Marlins' hottest hitter in Bryan De La Cruz, who already had two hits on the night.
And with first base open, instead of intentionally walking De La Cruz, the Mets decided to pitch to him, which ultimately came back to bite them. And De La Cruz made them pay with a walk-off hit against Diaz, who suffered his third consecutive loss.
After the game, Rojas defended the decision to have Diaz pitch to a dangerous hitter in De La Cruz.
"We always like Diaz," Rojas said. "You always trust your closer right there in a matchup, righty-righty. Diaz’s stuff always plays well."
Rojas went onto say that Diaz is typically not one to get hit hard, despite struggling with his command at times.
Diaz had gone 9-for-9 on saves with a 1.13 ERA since mid-July, but he has blown two saves in a row, and melted down again for a third straight appearance tonight.
The Mets wasted a prime chance to potentially gain a game on both the Phillies and Braves in the NL East. Instead, they will be four games back in the division with 22 left to play at best case scenario.
And with every game being so crucial down the stretch, the Mets are only 9-4 against the lowly Nationals and Marlins, which frankly isn't good enough.
The Mets offense got shutdown by Marlins starter Sandy Alcantara, who was dealing tonight. Alcantara went nine innings, while giving up one run on four hits and striking out a career-high 14 batters.
Rich Hill tossed arguably his best start as a Met, going six innings, allowing one run on five hits and striking out eight.
With the Mets trailing 1-0 and Alcantara cruising, Michael Conforto crushed a ball into the bleachers in right field for his 12th home run of the year, to tie things up. But this was the only run they would score, as the offense went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position in this contest.
Things got dicey in the bottom of the ninth inning, as Seth Lugo allowed a double and back-to-back walks to load the bases with one out. Luckily, he was able to strike out Miguel Rojas, before getting Jazz Chisholm to groundout to send the game into extra innings.
The Mets are now 70-70 on the season and must take the series from the Marlins in the rubber game on Thursday, with the reeling Yankees on deck this weekend.
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