Mets have long day in Baltimore, get swept by Orioles in doubleheader
David Peterson allowed five hits and no walks on seven-plus innings against Baltimore on Thursday. Credit: Getty Images/Greg Fiume
BALTIMORE — David Peterson was named an All-Star for the first time in his career. That was the beginning and the end of the good news for the Mets during Thursday’s doubleheader.
The Mets played 18 miserable innings riddled with offensive malaise and wasted Peterson’s Game 1 gem to drop both games, 3-1 and 7-3, to the last-place Orioles at Camden Yards.
The Mets went 2-for-19 with runners in scoring position and left 14 men on base in the two games. Despite being 12 games over .500 at 53-41, they remain one of the worst road teams in baseball. They are 20-27 away from Citi Field, including a 2-10 mark in their last 12 road games.
But back to Peterson: He was all but untouchable for seven innings and was in the midst of preserving a 1-0 lead when he allowed a single by Colton Cowser to lead off the eighth. That’s when manager Carlos Mendoza decided to summon Ryne Stanek from the bullpen despite Peterson’s economical pitch count.
But while it took Peterson 90 pitches to weave together his masterpiece, it took one bad slider from Stanek to pull the threads loose.
Orioles interim manager Tony Mansolino had gone with a righty-heavy lineup against Peterson and had a bench packed with lefties, and he used them in that eighth inning. With Stanek in and Cowser at first, Mansolino turned to Gunnar Henderson, who pulled a hanging knee-high slider 400 feet to right for the go-ahead home run — the first pinch-hit homer of his career.
Stanek walked pinch hitter Ryan O’Hearn, induced a groundout and walked the next two batters to load the bases with one out for Ramon Laureano, who hit a sacrifice fly to right to make it 3-1.
Intending to throw a bullpen game in the nightcap, the Mets stuck with Stanek for one more batter, but he walked Tyler O’Neill, forcing Mendoza to go to Austin Warren, who got Ramon Urias to pop out to end the frame.
“I just got pretty rotational, wasn’t really staying on line,” Stanek said. “I wasn’t able to find my rhythm and get in sync with my body.”
Of removing Peterson, Mendoza said they were “going batter to batter, especially with all the righties that were there.
“Once he got through the seventh, with a lefty leading off . . . [and] Cowser got him going the other way. Once you got to the eighth, we had Stanek ready and it just didn’t happen.”
Mendoza added: “We can sit and talk about it all we want. At the end of the day, we didn’t execute offensively.”
That inning undid a solid performance by Peterson, who allowed one run and five hits, striking out six and walking none.
After a lackluster June that included three starts in which he pitched to a 7.47 ERA, the big lefthander returned to form in his second strong start in a row.
Shortly after the loss, the Mets announced that Peterson, whose 3.06 ERA is the best of his career at the halfway mark, was selected as an All-Star for the first time in his career as a replacement for Giants lefthander Robbie Ray.
The Mets started off strong in Game 2, scoring two runs in the first inning. After Brandon Nimmo singled and Francisco Lindor doubled, Juan Soto’s RBI groundout and Pete Alonso’s sacrifice fly made it 2-0.
The Orioles erased that lead in the second, scoring three runs against Brandon Waddell. He allowed a one-out double by Cedric Mullins and an RBI double by Alex Jackson. One batter later, Jordan Westburg blasted a first-pitch slider 413 feet to left to give Baltimore a 3-2 lead.
The Mets tied it on Brett Baty’s fourth-inning RBI single but got no further. The Orioles scored two in the fifth, on Cowser’s RBI single and Baty’s run-scoring error, and added two more in the sixth.
The trio of Waddell, Justin Hagenman and Richard Lovelady combined to allow seven runs (six earned) and nine hits in 5 1⁄3 innings, striking out six and walking three. Rico Garcia threw 2 2⁄3 perfect innings.
“We just didn’t really get the timely hit,” Nimmo said. “I thought we did a pretty decent job. We just weren’t able to put enough together.”
Notes & quotes: Jesse Winker, recently returned from the injured list (oblique), was removed from the game in the fourth with back tightness. He returned to New York to get an MRI and Mendoza said an injured list stint is possible . . . The Mets recalled Luisangel Acuna from Triple-A Syracuse and designated Travis Jankowski for assignment. Mendoza said the plan was always to get Acuna consistent playing time at the minor-league level, give him more reps in centerfield and then bring him back up. “We know how important he is to the ballclub,” Mendoza said. “He got exposure in centerfield . . . and that will kind of be his role here, playing everywhere.”
Laura Albanese is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. She's been covering MLB since 2014 after starting at Newsday as an intern seven years earlier.
