The San Francisco Giants came to Citi Field Tuesday to hit dingers and chew bubble, and unfortunately for the Mets, Major League Baseball banned sticky substances.
The Giants shutout the Mets 8-0 Tuesday night, bringing New York to 2-9 over their last 11 games.
Seven runs came off Tylor Megill. The first six came off monster home runs from Mike Yastrzemski, Brandon Belt (twice) and LaMonte Wade Jr. One of them hit the Home Run Apple, another almost did and another went 450 feet off the Old Dominion truck in right-center field.
The powerful veterans forced Megill from the game after 3.2 innings, and the 26-year-old left with two men on base. The seventh and final run on Megill’s ledger came when Trevor Williams relieved him and Brandon Crawford singled one of the two base runners home.
Megill’s worst start of the year (11 hits and seven runs) came after his best one–six innings of one-run ball against these same Giants. He had faced teams in back-to-back starts twice before this year, and he performed well in the second start both times. But Tuesday, he struggled with his fastball location, leaving the three home runs (the two fastballs and one slider up in the middle and up of the zone below) hanging for Giants hitters.
The Mets gave up their eighth run of the night in the eighth frame on a handful of weak hits (for a change) off Miguel Castro and some risky base running by Darin Ruf. But as Ron Darling pointed out on the broadcast, those risky base running moves change from reckless to things that just end up working in your favor when you’re playing as well as the Giants.
The offense, on the other hand, barely budged all night. In what was their best and healthiest lineup of the second half so far, which featured the return of Francisco Lindor and the first game where they started a middle infield of Lindor and Javier Báez, the Mets couldn’t push a run across the plate.
Just three of those base runners came off starter Sammy Long, a former first-round pick with now five major-league starts under his belt. You wouldn’t know he came into the day with a 5.72 ERA, but when facing an offense as consistently rigid as the Mets, some struggling pitchers have performed this season like Long did Tuesday.
Though Long left with a man on, and Pete Alonso followed with a single to give them first and second with one out in the sixth, Lindor and Báez grounded into force outs to end their best scoring chance of the night until the ninth inning, when they got the bases loaded with two outs. Jeff McNeil grounded out to end that sequence and the game. (J.D Davis got hit in the head with a fastball with two outs in the final frame, but the pitch grazed the back of his helmet rather than hit it square on, so he was okay.)
The Mets have now scored just five runs in 19 innings (2.37 ERA) against Giants starters in the four games they’ve played this year. They’ve scored three runs total in regulation in the last three games against the Giants. (They had five runs in extras last Wednesday.)
The series continues Wednesday with Taijuan Walker on the mound for the Mets.
He last pitched Thursday against the Dodgers, giving up four runs in six innings, though it was his first start since July 18 he didn’t give up any home runs. He seems to have fully gotten over his post-All-Star-break slump, notching a 3.00 ERA in 18.2 innings in his last three starts–one against Philly and two against the Dodgers.
Johnny Cueto will throw for the Giants. The Mets missed Cueto in San Francisco last week because he’d been dealing with a flexor strain for the last two weeks. He’s expected to be activated off the injured list before the game Wednesday. Cueto has pitched at the back end of the Giants’ rotation this year, but he still has a 3.89 ERA over 104 innings.
