The New York Mets needed a win against the Cubs to keep from being swept in four, but they allowed four unearned runs.
The New York Mets badly needed a win last night after losing the first three games of their four-game set with the Chicago Cubs, but bad defense was the culprit in last night’s 4-3 loss as the Mets gave up four unearned runs.
Freddy Peralta’s strong bounce-back start gave the Mets hope early in this one. He shut out the Cubs for five innings after his disastrous last outing in Philadelphia, but a pair of errors allowed Chicago to take a 3-0 lead.
The first error was on a throw from shortstop Ronny Mauricio in the sixth that first baseman Mark Vientos couldn’t pick when it skipped short of the bag. It was a play most first baseman make routinely, but when right fielder Carson Benge allowed a base hit to the corner to skip between his legs later in the inning, it allowed the Cubs to rally and ruin Peralta’s good work.
“It’s a completely different inning, especially for Freddy’s outing,” manager Carlos Mendoza said in a piece written by Matthew Ritchie of MLB.com. “It’s just routine plays that are costing us. At this level, you expect to make plays like that. … You understand that they’re not going to be perfect, but those are as routine as it gets. And teams are making us pay for it, especially the past few nights.”
The Mets fought back, though, starting with a pinch hit home run by Eric Wagaman of Cubs reliever Hoby Milner. That cut the margin to one, and a solo homer by Jared Young in the seventh tied the game at 3-3.
The Mets had other opportunities to score, but the game stayed tied and went to extras, and at that point it almost felt like fait accompli that New York would find a way to lose.
The Cubs scored their ghost runner on a double by Pete Crow-Armstrong, and the Mets were set down in order in a ten-pitch inning by reliever Trent Thornton. The Mets wound up leaving 14 runners on base, and their RISP average during the four-game sweep was just .167 as they went 5-for-30.
“We chased,” Mendoza said. “You look back, and we went outside of the strike zone a few times there. And it ended up costing us. We’ve got to do a better job of controlling the strike zone in those situations and trusting the guy behind. The more times we can create traffic and pass the baton, the rallies are coming. But we expanded too much.”
