Mets swept by Brewers after Adam Ottavino gives up walk-off homer
Milwaukee Brewers' Garrett Mitchell (5) reacts after his game-winning home run during the ninth inning of a baseball game against the Mets on Wednesday, April 5, 2023, in Milwaukee. Credit: AP/Jeffrey Phelps
MILWAUKEE — The best thing to happen to the Mets during their three-day stay in Wisconsin was they got to leave afterward.
Their 7-6 loss Wednesday afternoon completed the sweep for the Brewers. Adam Ottavino gave up a game-ending home run to Garrett Mitchell to lead off the bottom of the ninth, a long flyball to rightfield that Ottavino didn’t even bother to watch as he started to walk back to the dugout.
The Mets, who went 3-4 on their season-opening road trip, have lost three consecutive games heading into their home opener against the Marlins on Friday, postponed by a day because of expected rain. That matches their longest such streak from last season. They haven’t lost four straight since September 2021.
“We’re going home to some friendly faces, we hope,” manager Buck Showalter said.
In the last at-bat, catcher Tomas Nido called for a fastball, but Ottavino shook him off, he said. They decided on a cutter instead, which was Ottavino’s preference because Mitchell had taken “kind of bad swings” at that pitch in the moments prior. But the final cutter wasn’t as inside or as up as Ottavino sought.
That made a waste of a day in which Francisco Lindor (3-for-4, two doubles) and Pete Alonso (2-for-4, two homers, 4 RBIs) combined to drive in all six Mets runs. Alonso's two-run shot in the fifth inning gave the Mets a 6-4 lead before the Brewers tied it in the bottom of the fifth.
“You’re always going to be frustrated, whether it’s April or August or whatever,” Ottavino said of the series. “But overall, it’s still early. Obviously, we have a lot baseball to play. We have to start putting our best foot forward here.”
Lindor added: “They outplayed us, flat-out. Simple. They outplayed us.”
And David Peterson: “We can’t let this get us down. It’s early and we got a long way to go. We’ll be better for it.”
The first half of the game featured the opposite of a pitchers’ duel between Brewers ace Corbin Burnes and the lefthanded Peterson, with neither escaping the fifth.
Peterson allowed five runs on five hits and five walks over four-plus innings. He didn’t have any perfect innings but had particular trouble in the second, when in a span of three pitches Jesse Winker doubled, Owen Miller singled and Joey Wiemer hit a three-run homer.
Miller’s knock went through the left side of a drawn-in infield — past a diving Lindor — for an RBI single. Wiemer’s long ball was the first of his career (in his fifth career game).
Driving up Peterson’s pitch count along the way: all those free passes.
“It’s been a challenge at this level for him,” Showalter said. “He’s going to have to solve that to be the pitcher that he’s capable of being. Some days he does. To be that consistent guy we can count on, that’s something we’re going to have to figure out.”
The Mets were similarly successful against Burnes, reaching him for six runs, seven hits and two walks in 4 1/3 innings. Starling Marte was hit by a pitch, stole second and came home on Lindor’s double, the Mets scored for the first time in the series, having been shut out in the first two games.
Alonso's pair of homers was the 15th multi-homer game of his career.
With 149 homers across his now five major-league seasons, Alonso is tied with Carlos Beltran for sixth on the Mets’ all-time list.
“That second one, that’s a strong man’s home run,” Showalter said of Alonso’s 424-footer. “That’s a good two-iron.”
The Mets didn’t have any hits after Alonso’s latter.
“There’s a lot of things,” he said, “we could do better.”
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
