DEEP-SIXED IN THE DESERT
METS’ SKID REACHES HALF DOZEN AS KEY HIT PROVES ELUSIVE
PHOENIX —The Mets have been so bad lately that a moral victory could have been awarded to them Tuesday.
Sure, they lost their sixth straight, 5-4 to the Diamondbacks at Chase Field, but the bullpen not only wasn’t dreadful, it actually stabilized. Baby steps perhaps?
Now back to the cold facts. The Mets (16-22) haven’t won a game on this road trip, and struggling Matt Harvey is scheduled to face Arizona in Wednesday’s series finale. So even if the Mets bullpen has stabilized after complete meltdowns Sunday and Monday, there was no cause for manager Terry Collins to turn cartwheels Tuesday.
The big hit the Mets needed never arrived, negating the work of Paul Sewald, Fernando Salas and Jerry Blevins, who combined for 2 ¹/3 innings of scoreless relief behind Tommy Milone. That represented progress for a team whose bullpen had surrendered 14 combined runs in the previous two games, both of which were late-inning losses.
The rookie Sewald was particularly effective, retiring all four batters he faced, with three strikeouts. But the Mets couldn’t scratch for the run they needed to tie it.
Rene Rivera hit a two-run homer in the seventh against Zack Greinke to resurrect the Mets, moving them within 5-4. The blast extended Rivera’s career-long hitting streak to 10 games — a stretch in which he is batting .410 — making it easier for the Mets to forget Travis d’Arnaud is on the disabled list with a bruised right wrist.
Yasmany Tomas homered leading off the sixth to put the Mets in a 5-2 hole. Milone rebounded to record two outs in the inning before Sewald was summoned from the bullpen to finish the inning.
Over 5 2/3 innings, the lefty Milone allowed five earned runs on six hits with three walks and four strikeouts. It was a 16th straight game in which a Mets starting pitcher failed to complete seven innings, dating to April 28 in Wash- ington with Jacob deGrom.
Milone received a no-decision in his debut with the Mets last Wednesday, when he allowed two earned runs over five-plus innings against the Giants — a game Jeurys Familia blew with four runs allowed in the ninth, after Wilmer Flores committed an error.
Curtis Granderson, batting eighth for the first time in his Mets tenure, blasted a solo homer in the fifth that sliced the deficit to 4-2. The homer was the third this season for Granderson, who entered batting only .148. But Greinke retired six straight batters following the homer, minimizing his workload in the process.
A botched rundown by the Mets in the third allowed Paul Goldschmidt to steal home, giving the D’backs a 4-1 lead. On the play, Chris Owings broke from first and got into a rundown. Lucas Duda pursued Owings too far and then bounced a throw to the plate attempting to nail Goldschmidt. Rivera retrieved the ball and threw out Owings attempting to reach third.