QUEENS, N.Y. — The Mets continued to get walked all over by Rhys Hoskins, who went 3-for-4 with a home run and four RBI in the Milwaukee Brewers’ 7-6 victory on Saturday afternoon at Citi Field.
The former Phillies slugger’s hard slide on Jeff McNeil during Friday’s season opener got the Mets hot under the collar, but they were unable to do anything to slow him down — reliever Yohan Ramirez sending a fastball behind him in the top of the seventh inning and getting ejected well after the right-handed slugger did his damage.
“This is a guy that has been a really good player in this league,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said of Hoskins. “Our job is to get him out and we didn’t do a good job of that today. We’ll make some adjustments and we’ll be alright.”
Francisco Alvarez went 3-for-4 with a home run and the first two Mets RBI before the Mets nearly overturned a 7-2 deficit late in the game. Brett Batyhit a three-run, pinch-hit home run in the eighth inning that brought the hosts to within two. Pete Alonso’s first home run of the season in the top of the ninth made it a one-run game, but Brewers closer Abner Uribe was able to close the door on the Mets with strikeouts of DJ Stewart and Starling Marte.
With the loss, the Mets have dropped to 0-2 for the first time since 2014 and just the second time in the past 20 seasons.
Hoskins collected all four of his RBI across the first three innings against Luis Severino, who struggled in his Mets debut by allowing six runs on 12 hits with six strikeouts across five innings of work.
“[The Brewers] are a good hitting team,” Severino said. “They don’t strike out that much but everything was on me. Overall, I didn’t make good pitches. They were just a little bit better today.”
He was scratched for three in the first inning alone much in part to a booted groundball by third baseman Zack Short. After striking out the first batter he faced, Severino appeared to be cruising when he gave up a weak grounder to catcher William Contreras. Short could not field it cleanly, however, and floodgates opened.
Christian Yelich blooped a single before Willy Adames drove in a run with a double. Hoskins then smacked a two-run single down the left-field line to give the Brewers an early cushion.
“My job is to go out there and get people out,” Severino said. “[Short] is not going out there trying to make errors. He’s trying to get people out. For me… I just need to focus on the next batter and get people out.
While Hoskins came through, McNeil could not in the bottom of the first, flying out with the bases loaded in a key chance to cut into Milwaukee’s lead.
Alvarez pulled one back for the Mets leading off the second inning, taking the first pitch he saw 400 feet into the left-field seats, which left the bat at 109.7 mph.
Hoskins came up with an immediate reply in the top of the third, launching his first homer of the season — a two-run shot — into the left-field seats to make it a 5-1 game.
Alvarez drove in his second run with a two-out single in the bottom of the third, but Hoskins helped re-open the advantage two innings later. After dropping a one-out single to center in the fifth, the Met-killer advanced to third on an Oliver Dunn liner that bounced off Pete Alonso’s wrist at first base. He then came into score when Severino balked.
Ramirez got the ball for the seventh and with one out and one on, sent a fastball behind Hoskins, leading to his ejection. While Hoskins stood near home plate with his hands on his hips after dropping his bat, his Brewers teammates rose to the top step of their dugout, though it did not escalate further.
“I was just trying to throw my sinker inside and sometimes when I try to get it too in, the ball just runs, honestly,” Ramirez said through an interpreter. “In this type of weather, I don’t have the grip that I’m accustomed to having so at that point, the ball just ran but I wasn’t trying to hit him.”
With two on and one out in the eighth, Baty took Brewers reliever Bryse Wilson deep to make it a 7-5 game — a deficit that was preserved heading into the bottom of the ninth by Mets closer Edwin Diaz, who was making his first appearance since the 2022 season.
Diaz allowed one hit and struck out one in a successful return to the mound after recovering from a torn patellar tendon in his right knee suffered last March.
“It felt great, I was really happy,” Diaz said. “I was a little bit anxious, I can’t lie to you guys, but I did my job… I gave my team a chance to win.”
