MATZ MAULED IN UGLY LOSS
The curse of Adam Wilk lives.
Wilk, a journeyman lefty, was summoned to the Mets on short notice May 7 after Matt Harvey was suspended for an unexcused absence from a game. Wilk got pounded against the Marlins, beginning a maddening stretch for the Mets on Sundays at Citi Field.
With their latest loss, 13-4 to the Rockies, the Mets are 1-5 on Sundays at Citi beginning with Wilk’s appearance. They have been outscored 51-16 in those games.
Steven Matz was booed in the second inning and removed after fooling nobody. The lefty allowed seven earned runs on nine hits over one-plus inning for his second straight awful performance, as the Mets failed to complete a three-game sweep.
“It’s just not the way you write it up — it’s frustrating,” said Matz, who turned in the shortest outing by a Mets starting pitcher this season. “I’ve got to flush it.”
Nolan Arenado smashed a three-run homer in the second inning that buried Matz in a 7-0 hole. Mark Reynolds followed with a single, bringing manager Terry Collins to the mound for a pitching change as boos resonated through the ballpark.
Collins said he dispatched pitching coach Dan Warthen to examine video of Matz after the pitcher was removed. The verdict was Matz had located poorly, leaving too many pitches over the middle of the plate.
“I don’t care how good your stuff is, you can’t do that in this league,” Collins said. “I told Steven he’s got to use his secondary pitches, especially days command of his fastball is not really good. You have got to let those hitters know you are going to throw other stuff, so there is certainly some work to do there.”
Matz agreed with the manager’s assessment.
“It’s something I may need to get back to, working the curveball and changeup more and trusting my stuff versus going to their scouting report and relying on that more,” Matz said.
The Mets fell 9 ½ games behind the Rockies in the race for the NL’s second wild-card berth. Before the game, Collins said his goal leaving the All-Star break was to win 51 of 76 games, giving the Mets 90 victories for the season.
“I don’t think by any stretch of the imagination this is over yet,” Collins said.
Lucas Duda and Asdrubal Cabrera each homered for the Mets, who had scored 23 runs combined in the first two games of the series.
Duda’s homer was the 123rd of his career with the Mets, moving him ahead of Kevin McReynolds for eighth alltime in franchise history. Duda needs one homer to tie Todd Hundley for seventh place on the Mets all-time list.
Matz, who was placed on the disabled list before the start of the season with elbow discomfort and missed the first two months, allowed five earned runs over 4 ¹/3 innings in a loss to the Cardinals last Sunday.
The Rockies sent nine batters to the plate in the first inning and scored four runs. Ian Desmond stroked a two-run single in the inning before Trevor Story brought in two additional runs with a double.
“I was leaving balls right over the middle of the plate and they were hitting it,” Matz said.
Charlie Blackmon’s two-run homer in the seventh against Chase Bradford extended the Mets’ deficit to 11-4. Blackmon’s ball hit behind the fence in left-center and caromed back on the field. But Blackmon was credited with an insidethe-park homer as Curtis Granderson didn’t rush to retrieve the ball he saw hit behind the fence and umpires ruled in play. Because it was a homer either way, the play wasn’t reviewed.