Club falls to 0-5 after blowing late lead in first game of doubleheader

NEW YORK — When it rains, it pours for the Mets.

Fresh off of back-to-back rainouts, the Mets kicked off Thursday’s doubleheader at Citi Field with their fifth consecutive loss to begin 2024, this time blowing a three-run lead in an eventual 6-3 defeat by the Detroit Tigers in 11 innings.

Detroit tied the game on a Riley Greene home run in the eighth inning and rallied for three runs in the 11th, eliciting boos from a sparse crowd on a chilly Queens day.

Colt Keith’s RBI double and Gio Urshela’s two-run single in the 11th came off of Mets reliever Michael Tonkin, who fell to 0-2. Tonkin also took the loss in Monday’s 5-0 loss to Detroit, surrendering five runs, all unearned, in the 10th inning of that one.

The 0-5 start is the Mets’ worst since 2005 and is tied for the third worst in franchise history.

“It’s baseball. You’re going to go through it,” said Mets pitcher Adrian Houser, who started the game. “Some teams go on a losing skid in the middle of the year. Right now, we’re just starting out on the wrong foot. We’re not playing terrible. … Two weeks from now, we could be on a 10-game, 11-game win streak.”

The Mets jumped out to a 2-0 lead Thursday on a two-run double by catcher Francisco Alvarez in the third inning, snapping a 19-inning scoreless streak that dated back to Sunday. The two-out hit gave the Mets their first lead since the fourth inning of Opening Day.

Brett Baty added a fifth-inning RBI single to put the Mets up 3-0.

But the Mets unraveled from there.

Houser, in his team debut, began with five scoreless innings but left with runners on the corners and no outs in the sixth. Detroit scored its first run on an Andy Ibanez sacrifice fly against reliever Brooks Raley in the sixth, then added another in the seventh on a wild pitch by Jake Diekman.

Greene’s home run against Adam Ottavino tied the game, 3-3, in the eighth.

The Mets wasted multiple golden scoring opportunities after that.