A FAILURE OF ARMS

With depleted staff, Milone not answer as Mets drop 6th straight

PHOENIX — Tommy Milone and Neil Ramirez. Less than two months ago in spring training, the Mets were talking about their great pitching depth. They were building their team around arms such as Noah Syndergaard, Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey Zack Wheeler, Steven Matz, Robert Gsellman and Seth Lugo.

Now, the Mets are looking to Milone and Ramirez to stop the season from heading into a death spiral.

Milone, the soft-tossing lefty who the Mets grabbed off the waiver wire two weeks ago, made his second start as a Met on Tuesday night, looking to stop a five-game losing streak.

It didn’t happen as the Mets dropped their season-high, tying sixth straight, losing 5-4 to the Diamondbacks at Chase Field. The Mets also lost sixth straight from April 20-27.

Milone gave the Mets 5.2 innings, allowing five earned runs on six hits, while walking three and striking out four. The newly signed right-handed reliever Ramirez − who was cut by both the Giants and Blue Jays this season and didn’t pitch Tuesday − is a stop gap to help the struggling bullpen.

Small moves like claiming Milone off waivers or signing Ramirez are not going to save the season, but they have proven helpful to the Mets in the past, assistant GM John Ricco said.

“Over the course of the season, they can make a big difference,” Ricco said. “We brought in Rene Rivera last year early on. We got James Loney last year, picked him up in a similar situation.

“Now with the ’pen, here’s (Ramirez) who has big league experience. He’s not going to come in and solve every problem, but he’s another major league guy,” Ricco said. “This is one of those situations the scouts and the analytics guys said there is something with this guy, let’s give (pitching coach Dan Warthen) a little time to work with him and maybe he takes some of the pressure of some of the other guys. He’s in a new situation, he gets a little bit of a new lease on life.

“With guys like Milone and Ramirez that’s you are trying to do,” Ricco said.

Signing Rivera last season has turned into a critical, long-term move. The one-time backup catcher extended his career-high hitting streak to 10 straight games with a two-run home run in the seventh inning.

With Milone and Rivera, the Mets felt like they had to do something to shore up their pitching.

Monday night was the second straight game the bullpen imploded with Hansel Robles (who allowed two homers) torched for a second straight outing. They headed into Tuesday night’s game with a 5.26 ERA, the third worst in the National League. They have suffered nine losses, and with Josh Edgin also giving up a solo homer Monday night, the bullpen has allowed 23 homers through the first 37 games. That is the second most given up by any bullpen in the majors.

Like they had to do Monday night, the bullpen was trying to pick up the slack for a struggling starting rotation, once touted as possibly the best in baseball, that has the second worst ERA in baseball (5.05).

With Syndergaard out likely until after the All-Star break, the Mets took a chance on Milone, waived by the Brewers last month. In two starts, Milone has allowed seven earned runs over 10.2 innings. But there were no better options internally. Lefty Steven Matz (elbow discomfort) and righthander Seth Lugo (torn UCL) are scheduled to make rehab appearances Thursday, but are only going to throw about 45 pitches and are still weeks away.

Syndergaard is months away from returning. Familia, who had surgery Friday to remove an arterial blood clot in his shoulder, is not guaranteed to be back this season.

And the Mets are just hoping that where the likes of deGrom, Harvey, Robles and Edgin have failed, the additions of Milone and Ramirez will work.