The New York Mets (13-13) tried hard to make this a competitive game against the Milwaukee Brewers (15-13) despite themselves. They committed three wild pitches, two errors, a passed ball and a fielding gaffe by Jeurys Familia among other lapses in judgement in an ugly 8-6 loss. The loss drops the Mets to .500 for the first time this year.  (Box Score)

Other than the fundamental mistakes, the game can be summarized by poor Mets pitching and two very notable home runs.

Noah Syndergaard started for the Mets. He gave up five ER on 10 hits, three BBs, two home runs and five K’s. He threw 100 pitches and finished April with a 6.35 ERA. April was the worst ERA month for Syndergaard in his career, the previous being a 5.14 ERA in June of 2015.

The bullpen combination of Robert Gsellman and Familia gave up three additional runs to account for the winning runs.

Each team had a home run of note. For the Mets, Pete Alonso stroked his ninth homer in the month of April in the seventh inning tying him for the most ever in April with four other players: Neil Walker, John Buck, Carlos Delgado, and Dave Kingman.

For the Brewers, Christian Yelich stroked his 14th home run of the season in the fourth tying him for the most homers in MLB history before May 1st with Albert Pujols and Alex Rodriguez.

Pitching

Noah Syndergaard started for New York and found himself in an immediate 1-0 hole three batters into the game. Lorenzo Cain led off with an infield single and after a pop-out by Yelich, Mike Moustakas grounded out to J.D. Davis. Pete Alonso held the ball for a moment before throwing to second to try to get Cain for the third out. Unfortunately, Alonso threw the ball into left-center field and Cain scored from second on the error.

Syndergaard worked out of a bases loaded jam in the second. After lead-off hits to Eric Thames and Orlando Arcia, Noah walked Ben Gamel to load the bases. Damage was averted (courtesy of a video review) as Cain grounded into an inning ending double play.

In the third, Syndergaard loaded the bases again, but this time could not get out of trouble unscathed. After base hits by Yelich and Moustakas, Noah walked Shaw to load the bases again. Thames was the next batter, and he grounded a hard single scoring two and giving Milwaukee a 3-0 lead.

The Brewers scored two more runs in the fourth on two solo runs. The first was by Gamel who had not hit a homer in 232 straight plate appearances before hitting an opposite field shot against Syndergaard. Two batters later, Yelich hit his historic 14th four-bagger to give the Brewers a 5-1 lead.

Milwaukee made it 6-1 in the sixth. Gamel stroked his second extra base hit of the evening, this a one out double. One batter later, Moustakas drove him home with an opposite field single against the shift to score Gamel.

After giving up four runs in the bottom of the seventh, the Brewers scored two insurance runs off of Jeurys Familia. After a lead-off walk to Gamel, Cain singled to put runners at first and third. It was Cain’s third hit of the game. Yelich followed by topping a slow roller up the first base line. It appeared the ball would roll foul, but Familia fielded it and was too late to get Yelich at first as Gamel scored.

It was Yelich’s third hit of the game. Cain took third on a pass ball and scored on a ground out by Grandal to make the score 8-5. It was also the sixth time in Familia’s last eight appearances that he has given up a run.

Offense

The Mets had twelve hits against Milwaukee pitching tonight. They were unable to get the clutch hit early on in the game and even though they attempted a comeback, fell short again to the Brew Crew.

New York scored their first run in the third inning. Jeff McNeil was hit by a pitch after one was out. Alonso followed with a single to snap an 0-11 drought to put runners on first and second. After Robinson Cano hit into a force play to put runners on the corners, McNeil scored on a wild pitch by Milwaukee starter Brandon Woodruff to make the score 3-1.

Down 6-1, the Mets got back in the game in the seventh inning scoring four runs. The first five Mets reached base in the frame starting with a solo home run by Amed Rosario off of Brewers’ reliever Alex Wilson to make it 6-2.

Travis d’Arnaud slammed a hard liner to left but was thrown out attempting to stretch the single into a double by Gamel.

Dominic Smith came in as a pinch hitter and walked and McNeil hit an infield single to put runners on first and third. Alonso strode to the plate facing Alex Claudio and rocketed a three-run homer to make the score 6-5.

In the eighth, the Mets got to within two runs after Milwaukee scored a pair in the top of the frame. After a walk to Davis, Brandon Nimmo singled to put runners on first and second. Davis was driven in by Rosario to make the score 8-6.

On Deck

The Mets and Brewers conclude their series tomorrow afternoon at 1:10 PM. Milwaukee called an audible with their pitcher as their ace Zach Davies was supposed to start but today they changed that to Gio Gonzalez who will be making his season debut. Can’t blame them for the change as Gonzalez has had success at Citi Field. In 17 starts he has an 11-2 record with a 1.75 ERA. Steven Matz will start for the Mets. If not for the eight run disaster against the Philadelphia Phillies, he’d have a 1.61 ERA. The game will be televised on WPIX and broadcast on WCBS-880.