The New York Mets (15-8) fell to the St. Louis Cardinals (15-9) by a score of 4-3 in the rubber game of their series on Thursday afternoon at Busch Stadium that ended on a walk-off hit in the 13th inning.

Pitching

Noah Syndergaard (2-0, 2.86 ERA) was tabbed as the Mets starter and continued to give the Mets the quality pitching they’ve needed.

Syndergaard started the day off by retiring his first 10 batters before giving up a hit. The hit didn’t disturb him much at all as he continued to mow down hitters and didn’t give up another hit until the seventh.

He ran into a roadblock in the seventh inning as he gave up a leadoff double to Tommy Pham and a RBI single to Marcell Ozuna. Paul DeJong then hit a two-out double to put runners on second and third, but Syndergaard was able to escape with a 2-1 lead.

Syndergaard came back out for the eighth and was put at an instant disadvantage as Amed Rosario committed a fielding error which put Greg Garcia on base to lead off the inning.

With runners on first and third, Syndergaard was pulled in favor of Robert Gsellman who proceeded to give up the lead on a RBI single from Pham before recording the third out.

Despite the no-decision, this was Syndergaard’s best start of the season thus far as he went a season-high 7 1/3 innings and held the Cardinals to six hits, two runs (one earned) and no walks, while striking out seven batters.

Seth Lugo came on in the ninth and ran into some trouble as he allowed two base runners with one out. However, he was able to retire the next two batters to send the Mets into extra innings.

Jeurys Familia blew the save in the tenth inning after giving up a two-out single to Pham and a RBI double to Jose Martinez.

AJ Ramos pitched the 11th inning and had a 1-2-3 inning with two strikeouts.

Paul Sewald pitched the 12th and turned in a perfect inning of his own. However, Sewald was also called upon to pitch the 13th inning and ended up giving up a walk-off single to Dexter Fowler.

Offense

The Mets’ offense took on Cardinals’ ace Carlos Martinez (2-1, 1.43 ERA) for the second time this season. The last time they saw him was on Opening Day when they scored five runs (four earned) off of him. Since then he had only given up one run in 27 1/3 innings.

The Mets got off to a quick start against Martinez this time around. After Brandon Nimmo was hit by a pitch, Yoenis Cespedes doubled him in one pitch later. However, Martinez did not let that get the best of him and prevented the Mets from getting another hit until the fourth inning and from getting another run until the seventh.

That second run was a result of two consecutive singles and then a sac fly from the bat of Cespedes.

The Mets were then kept off the board until the 10th inning. At first it looked like they’d go another inning without scoring as the first two batters were set down in order, but the Mets didn’t give up. Jay Bruce, Todd Frazier and Adrian Gonzalez loaded the bases with two singles and a walk. Jose Lobaton then drove in the go-ahead run with a bases-loaded walk.

Cespedes was the Mets’ best offensive performer as he went 2-for-5 with two RBIs. Bruce was the only other Met with a multi-hit game, but Nimmo did get on base three times after getting hit by a pitch twice and getting a single.

On Deck

Jacob deGrom (2-0, 2.53) will look to give the Mets back-to-back quality starts as he takes on Clayton Richard (1-2, 5.67 ERA) of the San Diego Padres on Friday night at Petco Park. First pitch is scheduled for 10:10 pm EDT and the game will be broadcasted on SNY and WOR.