Jake Diekman blows save in ninth as Mets fall to Diamondbacks
Jake Diekman of the Mets reacts after surrendering a ninth-inning two-run home run against the Diamondbacks at Citi Field on Sunday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
The Mets started the season with an eight-man bullpen. Just three of those eight were on the active roster on Sunday. Drew Smith was activated from the injured list before the game against Arizona and was available only in an emergency, manager Carlos Mendoza said.
So the Mets have had to rebuild their bullpen on the fly. It seemed to be working like gangbusters when the Mets went into the ninth inning with a one-run lead that four relievers had nursed since the fifth inning.
But then the bullpen door swung open and Jake Diekman emerged. Two batters later, the Mets were trailing, and they went on to a 5-4 loss before 31,059 at Citi Field.
Diekman, who hurled a dugout water cooler after a bad outing on May 21 in Cleveland, allowed a leadoff double by pinch hitter Gabriel Moreno and a go-ahead two-run home run by Ketel Marte.
“I just don’t think I’m executing well enough in certain situations,” Diekman said.
“The homer, if it’s two more inches in, it might be a swing and miss. It might be a double down the line.”
Before that at-bat, the Diamondbacks were 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position. It was Marte’s second home run of the game.
Before Diekman came in, the Mets’ bullpen had struck out nine in four scoreless innings.
The Mets have lost six games after bringing a lead into the ninth. That’s the most in baseball.
Arizona took a 3-0 lead after 1 1⁄2 innings against Jose Quintana on homers by Marte and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. in the first and a run-scoring groundout by Kevin Newman in the second.
The Mets scored four in the third against Brandon Pfaadt on an RBI single by Pete Alonso, a two-run triple by Brandon Nimmo and a go-ahead triple by J.D. Martinez.
The Mets had four hits in the inning. They had one total in the other eight.
Quintana went four, so the relievers had to cover five innings. They covered four.
“You’ve got to be perfect,” Mendoza said. “I thought the bullpen, obviously, did a hell of a job, piecing it together all the way to the ninth inning. But we couldn’t get the last three outs.”
Dedniel Nunez struck out three in 1 1⁄3 innings. Danny Young struck out one in two-thirds of an inning. Reed Garrett struck out the side in an 11-pitch seventh. Adam Ottavino struck out two in a nine-pitch eighth.
Unfortunately for the Mets, they couldn’t stop the game there.
The Mets (24-35) split the four-game series against the defending National League champions after winning the first two.
They won only three games in a 10-game homestand that ended with lusty boos from the crowd when Mark Vientos fouled out to catcher Tucker Barnhart for the final out.
“It’s been hard,” Mendoza said. “We haven’t been getting results. Last month was difficult [9-19 in May]. We lost a few games there where we fought till the end and we just didn’t get the results.
“But you can see that they compete the way they’re going about their business. We get down in games and they continue to fight back and put themselves in a position where, like, ‘OK, we’ve got a chance,’ especially toward the end of games.
“So they continue to fight, they’ll continue to work and we’ll get through it. But it’s not a secret. It’s been hard for us this past three, four weeks here.”
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
