The juxtaposition was impossible to miss. And if October arrives and the Mets are packing their belongings, a season rife with promise and expectations wasted, they will know exactly why they failed.
The Cardinals are the National League’s best team with runners in scoring position. The Mets are the worst. The difference presented itself over and over again in the Mets’ wrenching 5-4 defeat, one that cost them ground in the standings.
The Mets wasted so many chances that even Yoenis Cespedes’ dramatic two-run homer in the seventh inning became a footnote. Those failures to cash in left closer Jeurys Familia with the slimmest of margins, a one-run lead in the ninth, which he promptly gave away.
For the first time in nearly a year, Familia blew a save in the regular season. He had run his streak to 52 games, the third longest in the history of baseball, only to watch the accomplishment disappear into the muggy air.
With the Mets ahead 4-3 in the ninth, Jedd Gyorko worked a one-out walk ahead of Yadier Molina’s game-tying double to centerfield. Two batters later, Kolten Wong laced a double to left to score Jeremy Hazelbaker from second base.
The Cardinals, who began the day hitting an NL-best .294 with runners in scoring position, finished 3-for-9. It meant a critical series victory and costly setback for the Mets, who continue to tread water — win one, lose one, win one, lose one, etc.
They lost ground to both the Nationals and Marlins, who won earlier in the day. The Mets trail the Nats by 5 1⁄2 games in the NL East, and they are 1 1⁄2 games back of the Marlins for the second wild-card spot.
Cespedes had given the Mets hope.
The fury had been bubbling all game. All season, really. Just one strike separated the Mets from another round of infuriating futility with runners in scoring position. More boos would surely come flooding if not for Cespedes.
In the seventh, he fouled off a pitch, and then another, and then another. With the count full, Cardinals righthander Adam Wainwright reached into the archives. He flipped a curveball, the same pitch that once froze Carlos Beltran not far from here. But his 117th and final pitch wasn’t nearly as sharp as the one that traumatized the Mets a decade ago.
Cespedes pounced, unleashing the powerful swing that sent the ninth pitch of the at-bat crashing into the facing of the second deck in left-center.
Before Cespedes’ seventh-inning home run, the Mets had fallen to 1-for-11 with runners in scoring position. They had pinned Wainwright to the ropes all night long, though they scored only on a Neil Walker single in the second and a wild pitch in the seventh.
When Cespedes stepped to the plate, with a runner on second and his team trailing 3-2, he hadn’t homered since July 5. Meanwhile, Wainwright hadn’t surrendered a home run since May 28, a stretch of 67 1⁄3 innings, the longest such streak in baseball. It’s part of the reason that he began the game with a 0.93 ERA in July, the lowest in baseball.
Wainwright came within one strike of extending his homerless streak. But his curveball did not fool Cespedes, whose mighty drive unleashed a roar from the crowd.
The homer chased Wainwright, who allowed four runs on 11 hits in 6 2⁄3 innings. He was outpitched by the Mets’ embattled fifth starter, Logan Verrett, who logged one of his best outings of the season. He allowed three runs in the third inning and little else.
But the Mets paid dearly for their failure in the clutch. The Mets entered play hitting .207 with runners in scoring position. They finished 2-for-14 on Wednesday night and 4-for-33 in the three-game series.
..... - Newsday