Bellinger’s slam hands Amazin’s 4th straight loss
Zack Wheeler escaped one of his only bouts with trouble Friday night with the help of Michael Conforto’s glove. There was no leather to save the Mets’ starter three innings later, though, unless fans in the rightfield upper deck brought along gloves to shield themselves from Cody Bellinger’s rocket of a grand slam. That was all it took to sink the Mets. On a day when general manager Sandy Alderson said his team needed to start winning “almost immediately” to keep playing for 2018, the Mets lost their fourth straight game and 16th in their past 20, falling to the Dodgers 5-2 at Citi Field. “I had [Bellinger] 0-2, just where I wanted him and I was just trying to bury it in there underneath his hands,” Wheeler said. “It just tailed back over and basically set it on a tee for him. He made me pay for it.” Wheeler finished the night throwing a season-high 114 pitches — the most he has thrown since 2014, before Tommy John surgery — to get through seven innings. But because of the Mets’ thin margin for error, he was left ruing the 0-2 fastball he left over the plate to Bellinger with one out in the sixth. After walking the first two batters of the inning, Wheeler got ex-Met Justin Turner to fly out. But a bloop single from Matt Kemp loaded the bases to set the stage for Bell- inger’s 401-foot shot, which put the Dodgers up 4-0.
“Except for one leak-back 0-2 fastball, he threw the ball great,” manager Mickey Callaway said. “He had some pitches left and went out there and went seven for us and kept us in the game. Can’t ask for anything more from a starter than that.”
Wheeler has come on strong lately with an increase in velocity — his four-seam fastball averaged 96.6 mph and topped out at 98.7 mph — and an improved splitchangeup. He could be one of the pieces the Mets have to sell before the deadline, especially if they keep plummeting with nights like Friday.
Jose Bautista cracked his first home run as a Met, a two-run shot in the bottom of the sixth that cut the deficit in half, but it was the only timely hitting for an offense that stranded seven runners.
“Hopefully got a couple more [home runs] coming,” Bautista said. “I don’t think there’s anything special going on just yet.”
The Mets (31-42) had shown some life offensively in their last series at Coors Field, but perhaps all those hits and runs should be forgotten, just as Callaway said they should be for his pitchers at the hitter-friendly park.
The Mets were not without their chances against the Dodgers (39-35). They loaded the bases with one out in the second inning, put two on with no outs in the fifth and got runners on the corners with one out in the eighth, but couldn’t score each time.
Conforto’s gem had kept it a scoreless game in the third when he raced back and dove onto the warning track to snag a fly ball to strand a runner at third.
But it couldn’t keep the Mets from falling to 1-11 in their past 12 games at Citi Field.
“I wish we were playing better for our home fans and giving them more wins,” Callaway said. “They deserve more wins. We need to win more games at home for them.”
And to keep the selloff from coming.