Mets let one get away to Cubs, enter break on bad note

CHICAGO — There are days during the long baseball season when you have to stretch or search for greater meaning, when the strengths and weaknesses or progression and regression require squinting, turning your head and saying, yeah, maybe, there could be something there.

Sunday was not one of those days.

The lessons were obvious, repetitive and — for the Mets, who lost to the Cubs, 3-2 — painful.

Drew Smith blew a one-run lead by allowing two runs in the eighth inning, another reminder that the Mets really could use bullpen help in the lead-up to the Aug. 2 trade deadline. And the lineup had another pitiful day on a bad weekend, scoring a pair of runs only on Chicago goofs, again raising questions about how they can inject some thump.

Those areas of concern have not nearly derailed the Mets’ season. Indeed, as they head into the All-Star break, they are 58-35 and lead the NL East by 2 1⁄2 games. Their .624 winning percentage at the break is the second best in franchise history; only the 1986 team (.702) was better.

The Mets had a 5-2 road trip against second-place Atlanta and the rebuilding Cubs (35-57), who snapped a nine-game losing streak.

“I knew coming in this was going to be a challenging trip,” manager Buck Showalter said. “Felt like a lot of adrenaline and stuff would carry us through Atlanta but this would be a challenge. I’m really proud of coming in here and winning two series on the road this time of year when everybody’s tank is being challenged. I was real proud of everybody.”

With a lead heading into the late innings, the Mets were well positioned to complete the four-game sweep until the Cubs rallied in the bottom of the eighth.

Back-to-back singles by Christopher Morel and Willson Contreras put runners at the corners and Ian Happ tied the score with a dribbler back to Smith. Nico Hoerner’s two-out single to center brought in the go-ahead run.

“We lost, so it sucks,” Smith said. “But I think I’ve had worse outings this year. I thought I executed some good pitches. Off the bat, I thought I had a double-play ball on Contreras. We had a little shift on, which happens. You get outs from that and you give up some hits from that. Frustrating, but at the end of the day, I thought I executed better than other outings where I pitched good. So that’s baseball.”

That sequence might not have mattered had the Mets done a better job of scoring against one of the worst-pitching teams in baseball. They put the potential tying run on base in the ninth, but J.D. Davis grounded into a game-ending double play.

Across 30 innings Saturday and Sunday, the Mets totaled eight runs, only half of them earned. But they still managed to win two of the three games and nearly had them all.

Cubs righthander Adrian Sampson gave up two runs in 5 1⁄3 innings, about matching Mets lefthander David Peterson (five innings, one unearned run). Both Mets runs came on weird plays.

With two on and two out in the first inning, Francisco Lindor was picked off first and got caught in a rundown, but he evaded the Cubs’ tag attempt and made it to second as Starling Marte scored. Officially, it was a double steal.

In the fifth, Pete Alonso popped what was ruled a single to shallow rightfield. First baseman Frank Schwindel failed to make the catch as Brandon Nimmo scored.

“We did enough to win,” Showalter said. “Played well enough to win. Today we left some people out there. Once again, we got some people out there and weren’t able to cash them in. That was frustrating for us.”

The loss was an awkward ending to the largely successful pre-All-Star-break months.

“We played good ball the first half, showed a lot of professionalism, a lot of days that we bounced back well,” Lindor said. “Very pleased with the way we played in the first half.”

By Tim Healey

timothy.healey@newsday.com@timbhealey

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.