The New York Mets (45-51) were going for a series sweep on Thursday afternoon against the Chicago White Sox (41-57). There was the debut of LHP José Quintana (0-1, 3.60 ERA) against one of his former teams and although he put up a solid first outing, the offense did not have much going on as they only had four hits and the White Sox picked up a 6-2 win.

Quintana’s debut got off to a rough start. With one out, the White Sox put up three straight singles (RBI single by Eloy Jiménez) in the top of the first that gave them a 1-0 lead. One inning later, the lead increased to 2-0 on a sacrifice fly by Elvis Andrus.

After the first two innings, the left-hander only allowed two singles in the final three innings and was able to keep the Mets in the game. He went five innings, allowed two runs on six hits, and struck out three on 77 pitches (53 strikes).

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“Good. Very encouraging. The two flares in the first inning, that’s part of baseball. Talking to him in the dugout, he felt better and better as the game went on,” said manager Buck Showalter about Quintana’s start.

As for the Mets offense, they were not able to muster much against RHP Michael Kopech. Kopech hadn’t allowed a hit through the first eight batters until Omar Narváez picked up a one-out single to left in the third. New York tried to rally in the third, but the rally was stopped by a Tommy Pham double-play.

Pham ended up leaving the game due to a groin injury, and Showalter gave an update after the game on the same day that Starling Marte was placed on the IL due to migraines. Mark Vientos is being called up to replace Marte on the roster.

“He’s going to get re-imaged. The good thing is we have a comparison now because the last one was pretty clean…He felt it stiffen up and didn’t want to take a chance without getting back all the way. We will see if there is a change in the image from the last one we took before we make a decision on which way to go forward,“ said Showalter.

Narváez would provide the Mets with some offense in the fifth as he hit a solo home run to right center for his first long ball as a member of the Mets to cut the deficit to 2-1.

Kopech (4-8, 4.29) fell one out short of a quality start as he went 5 2/3 innings, allowed one run on two hits, walked four, and struck out five on 89 pitches (49 strikes) in the win.

New York’s defense ended up doing them in the sixth with Drew Smith on the mound. Luis Robert Jr. ended up reaching via a Pete Alonso error on a misplayed groundball to first. After a stolen base, a single, and a walk, Yasmani Grandal extended the lead to 4-1 with a double to right.

After a sacrifice fly by Oscar Colás, Andrus hit an RBI triple past Jeff McNeil in right center to extend the lead to 6-1, which ended up putting the game out of reach. McNeil had to go to right after the Pham injury. David Peterson came in for Smith and threw 1 1/3 scoreless innings (one walk, two strikeouts).

Even though Alonso has the defensive mishap, he was able to provide some offense in the eighth when he hit a single to right that drove in Nimmo for his 63rd RBI of the year.

Player of Note

On a day where there was not much offense, Narváez gets the player of the game for his solo home run. It was his first home run since he was with the Brewers on July 30, 2022. It was also his second multi-hit game of the season, with the first one coming in the opening series of the year against the Marlins (April 1).

Stat Of The Game

Even though Quintana may not have had the same level of success as Kopech did, he was able to get the same amount of swings and misses (courtesy of Baseball Savant). 53 of his 77 pitches were for strikes (68.8%), and he was able to induce seven groundball outs out of the 15 that were recorded. If he continues to have a similar level of success as he had Thursday, it can only strengthen the back of the Mets rotation the rest of the way.

On Deck

On Friday, the Mets will be at Fenway Park when they begin a three-game series against the Boston Red Sox (51-46). You can watch the game on SNY or MLB Network (out-of-market) at 7:10 p.m. EST. Kodai Senga (7-5, 3.20 ERA) will get the ball for New York against James Paxton (5-2, 3.51) for the Red Sox.