Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

The Mets lost to the Diamondbacks 6-5 Tuesday night in a 10-inning affair, breaking the team’s five-game winning streak.

The team was up 4-0 at one point, but a Pavin Smith three-run home run off Marcus Stroman and two-out single in the ninth by Josh Rojas off Edwin Diaz (his first run given up in a save situation this year) brought the game to extra innings.

Once they reached extras, James McCann was able to fist a double to right field to bring in José Peraza, who started the 10th on second base. They couldn’t muster any more runs in the inning, which came back to bite them a couple minutes later.

Luis Rojas elected to bring in Trevor May for the save, even though May has been struggling recently and threw nearly 30 pitches the night before. May got the first out before walking Pavin Smith then giving up the game-winning two-run double to Josh Reddick.

Seth Lugo, who was activated from the injured list Monday, still hasn’t entered a game, though one could argue a save situation in extras with a man starting on second–a scenario Lugo hasn’t pitched in before–isn’t exactly the spot to bring him back in.

This really felt like a game the Mets had no real business losing, and it’s an ominous start to June–a month the Mets have historically not performed well in over the past decade.

The blown loss overshadowed great work by Jeurys Familia and Aaron Loup out of the bullpen in the seventh and eighth innings.

Marcus Stroman pitched wonderfully through five innings, too, allowing just four hits over the first five frames. All four hits came with two outs, and none came across the plate. The sixth inning changed his stat line, though. He allowed two singles to open the inning and almost got out of it unscathed, but that’s when Pavin Smith decided he wanted to send a baseball to Glendale for the D’backs’ first three runs of the game.

Stroman looked a bit tired in the fifth, taking one or two extra trips around the mound in the inning. Mind you, it was 100 degrees around first pitch in Phoenix. Once he got out of the fifth, though, Josh Rojas had a couple words for Stroman and some teammates. The words didn’t become anything more than that, but benches emptied, because that’s what happens in baseball if you sniff in the wrong direction of a player.

The Pavin Smith homer came the next inning, but Stroman was able to limit the damage to just that. Naturally, though, Josh Rojas was the one who tied the game with two outs in the ninth.

Stroman now has a 2.66 ERA for the year. He’s thrown at least six innings in eight of his 11 starts–remarkable consistency for a Mets rotation that’s needed it.

As far as the Mets’ scoring in regulation, Dominic Smith got the ball rolling for the Mets with a two-out, two-run home run in the fourth with Pete Alonso on base. It’s Smith’s third extra base hit in two games and his first home run since April 13.

Dom knocked in Francisco Lindor two innings later on a sac fly after Lindor brought Jonathan Villar home on his first triple as a Met. The shortstop is percolating at the plate, too, with his third extra base hit in as many games. He’s 6-for-his-last-18 on a small four-game hitting streak. More importantly, he’s mashing some pitches and lifting them at the same time–not jamming them into the ground.

The Mets will send David Peterson (1-4, 4.91) to the mound try to win the series on Wednesday afternoon.

He’ll face off against Madison Bumgarner, who’s 4-5 with a 5.15 ERA (4.31 FIP). Bumgarner has fabulous career numbers against the Mets–1.86 ERA in 63 innings, including the classic 2016 Wild Card playoff game–though he hasn’t faced the team since 2019 when with the Giants.

Bumgarner hasn’t been consistently effective with the Diamondbacks so far, and perhaps he’ll break his trend of excellence against the Mets as he has against the rest of the league, too.

The game starts at 3:40 and will only be broadcast on YouTube. There will always be the radio broadcast on WCBS 880 with Howie Rose and Wayne Randazzo, of course.