The Mets won’t want to see the city of Milwaukee for quite a while after the last three days they had.
Garrett Mitchell belted a walk-off solo home run to lead off the ninth inning against Adam Ottavino — his third home run in the last two games — to defeat the Mets 7-6 on Wednesday afternoon at American Family Field to complete a three-game sweep in which they outscored New York 19-0 over the first two games.
Mets pitching continued to struggle mightily to continue a concerning early-season trend. Starter David Peterson was thumped for five runs on five hits with five strikeouts and five walks over four-plus innings of work while reliever Drew Smith squandered a 6-4 New York lead in the fifth by allowing a two-run double to Jesse Winker.
“Not what he’s capable of,” manager Buck Showalter said of Peterson. “Anytime you walk that many people, that’s a challenge. We did some really good things offensively today against a good pitcher, we just couldn’t keep them in the ballpark, really all series.”
It marred an afternoon in which Mets bats finally came alive to break a 20-inning scoreless drought. Pete Alonso smashed two home runs with four RBI and Francisco Lindor collected three hits and two RBI against 2021 NL Cy Young Award winner Corbin Burnes.
“They outplayed us flat out,” Lindor said. “You just have to give them credit. Hats off to them.”
After going 5-for-40 over the first six games of the season Alonso and Lindor combined to go 5-for-8 on Wednesday.
The Mets (3-4) finally got a run across in Milwaukee in the first inning when Lindor doubled home Starling Marte, who reached after getting hit by a pitch before stealing second base. But a 1-0 lead didn’t last long as Peterson followed the recent trend of yielding big Brewers innings.
“I got the pitches I wanted to hit and put them in play,” Lindor said. “Against Miami, I got pitches I wanted to hit and I couldn’t put them in play… It doesn’t really matter when you end up losing.”
Owen Miller singled home Mets killer Brian Anderson to tie the game before rookie Joey Wiemer smacked his first-career home run over the right-center-field wall on a badly-missed 93-mph fastball that hung in the middle of the zone to make it 4-1 in the second.
That was the theme of Peterson’s afternoon, who often missed pitches on his arm (left) side.
But while the Mets were inept in finding responses to big Milwaukee innings over the first two games of the series, they found a quick counter in the third. Marte blooped a double down the right-field line and was driven home again by Lindor to cut New York’s deficit to two.
The previously struggling Alonso tied it up one batter later when he went the other way for his second home run of the season.
Lindor and Alonso struck again in the fifth inning to put the Mets ahead. Lindor picked up his third hit of the afternoon with a one-out double in the fifth before Alonso followed up with a laser of a two-run shot that left the bat at 112 mph and whizzed over the left-center-field fence.
“That’s a strong man’s home run,” Showalter said. “Those two guys.. scored enough runs to win us a game.”
The long ball was the 149th of Alonso’s career, tying him for sixth on the Mets’ all-time list with Carlos Beltran. It would be the last hit New York would have on Wednesday as the Milwaukee bullpen shut them down the rest of the way.
Peterson would walk Christian Yelich to lead off the fifth before getting the hook before Smith followed recent Mets protocols by letting the Brewers back in it. With two outs and running a second 3-2 count in the inning, Smith was taken into the right-center gap by Winker for a double to tie things up at six.
The Mets head back to Queens for their home opener on Thursday afternoon against the Miami Marlins.
“I think everybody’s looking forward to getting home and getting settled,” Showalter said. “Looking forward to a nice day tomorrow.”
