NOT IN THE CARDS
Debut of City Connect uniform can't change ugly outcome for Mets against St. Louis
New look, same bad results. The Mets premiered their City Connect uniforms Saturday and in addition to looking like knock-off Colorado Rockies, they played like it, too, in a 7-4 loss to St. Louis at Citi Field.
Adrian Houser was miserable for a third time in five starts as a Met and the offense couldn’t overcome his poor outing as they lost for the fifth time in six games to fall back to .500 (13-13).
It came against a Cardinals team that had lost five of six before beating the Mets in Queens to open the series Friday.
Trailing by three in the bottom of the ninth, the Mets loaded the bases before Francisco Lindor popped out to end it.
The main culprit, though, was Houser.
He was bad again, this time getting off to a brutal start after he’d alternated decent outings with terrible performances in his first four starts as a Met, when he was good at home and bad on the road.
On Saturday, Houser allowed five of the first six hitters to reach — and four of them scored.
Carlos Mendoza said Houser’s spot in the rotation is not in jeopardy.
Still, Houser was honest in his assessment of how he’s performed, having allowed 14 runs in his last two starts.
“The way I’m pitching right now is pretty unacceptable,’’ Houser said. “I need to be better. I can’t be putting guys in a hole like this.”
Asked what’s been wrong, Houser said, “I’ve been wracking my brain the last couple weeks, trying to figure it out. I’m in a little bit of a rut. The game is punching me in the mouth right now. I’ve got to punch back.”
The Mets, after getting to three games over .500 thanks to a six-game winning streak, have since lost all but one game, coming up short in all facets of the game.
Down 6-0, they mounted a rally in the fifth against exYankee Sonny Gray, who entered with a 1.04 ERA and dominated them through the first four innings.
Tyrone Taylor reached on an error by Nolan Arenado at third and Brett Baty walked. After a wild pitch moved the runners up, Brandon Nimmo drove them both in and Pete Alonso followed two batters later with his 200th career homer to make it 6-4.
The offense stalled the rest of the way.
Houser began the game by giving up a leadoff double to Brendan Donovan, which skipped off a diving Alonso’s glove and into right field. Willson Contreras followed with a flare single to right to put runners on the corners.
Houser got Lars Nootbar to foul out, but Arenado’s single to right — another bloop — scored Donovan for the game’s first run.
Goldschmidt then drilled a two-run double to left-center to make it 3-0.
A two-out RBI single by Masyn Winn increased the lead to 4-0 before Houser’s 32-pitch first inning ended.
The latest poor performance bumped Houser’s ERA to a whopping 8.37.
The Mets broke through against Gray in the bottom of the fifth thanks to Nimmo’s two-run single.
Lindor struck out — one of his four on the day — before Alonso homered to rightcenter to make it a two-run game.
The Cardinals tacked on another run on a Donovan sacrifice fly in the eighth.
Taylor and Mark Vientos singled with one out in the bottom of the ninth, but Tomas Nido popped out and after Nimmo walked, Lindor came up short.
“If you look from where we started, we’ve come a long way,’’ Alonso said. “We’ve been in these games the whole way through. It’s not necessarily ideal that we’re not winning games, but we’re playing really good ball.”