NEW YORK _ Terry Collins could probably see it coming after the first inning. Matt Harvey needed 33 pitches to finish it. A complete game was out of the question, seven or eight innings unlikely, and the New York Mets manager would require a sizable contribution from his bullpen.
For these Mets, that proposition is fraught with peril. Their bullpen, overworked because of injury and ineffectiveness from the starting rotation, is among the worst in the NL.
But Collins couldn't have counted on Elias Diaz. Diaz wasn't announced in the lineup until half an hour before game time as a replacement for an ill Francisco Cervelli. He gave the Pirates two leads, once with a bases-clearing double and again with his first major league home run, and the Pirates overcame another mediocre start by Gerrit Cole to beat the Mets 12-7 at Citi Field.
When Diaz came to bat in the fourth inning, the Pirates had already had one bases-loaded, nobody-out opportunity against Harvey. They came away with one run, on David Freese's groundout. Surrounded by baserunners again in the fourth, Harvey missed low and away with a slider. Then next slider came right into the zone and Diaz knocked it off the wall in left-center field to give the Pirates a 4-2 lead.
Diaz's next at-bat came with two men on in the sixth against righty Paul Sewald. One run was already in, on Josh Bell's solo homer off Harvey. Sewald went inside with the first pitch and Diaz jumped it. The liner over the left-field wall gave the Pirates an 8-7 lead. Diaz drove in six runs in the game.
Josh Harrison added on with an RBI double in the sixth and a solo homer in the eighth.
Cole's pitches leave the yard at an alarming rate this season. In his past two shaky starts, which followed several consecutive exceptional ones, he allowed five combined home runs. After three more Friday, he has given up eight in his past 142/3 innings.
Lucas Duda pounced on a 2-0 mistake fastball in the second inning for a two-run homer. Michael Conforto hit his 14th homer in the fifth, during which the Mets scored five runs. Duda followed Neil Walker's RBI triple with another homer into the second deck in right.
From April 14 to May 17, a seven-start stretch, Cole had a 1.96 ERA and 44 strikeouts in 46 innings. In his past three, he allowed 28 hits in 142/3 innings, eight homers and 16 runs. After allowing seven runs and eight hits in five innings Friday, his ERA rose from 2.84 on May 17 to 4.27.
