NEW YORK — On the 56th anniversary of the Beatles’ famous concert at Shea Stadium, it was the Mets who needed help.
They needed somebody to help them figure out Max Scherzer, the Dodgers’ recent acquisition who stifled the Mets en route to a 14-4 Los Angeles victory. Scherzer shoved for six innings and Max Muncy clobbered two nearly identical home runs. The Mets couldn’t stop the Dodgers’ offensive parade, beginning their NL West gauntlet run by getting swept at home.
There was something in the way they moved from the very beginning, when Mets’ starter Carlos Carrasco gave up six earned runs in his two innings of work, starting with three in the first. The Turner & Turner duo jumped on Carrasco from the moment the lights came on, as Trea led things off with a single and Justin knocked them in with a two-run homer. Trea Turner reached and scored on a home run in the second inning as well, this time coming from Max Muncy.
Carrasco’s 31-pitch second inning was the end of both his night and any realistic chance of the Mets salvaging a win. It was the second straight ugly start for Carrasco, who desperately needs to get back to the form that made him one of the American League’s best pitchers in the mid-2010s. He followed Tuesday’s disappointment — a one-inning, four-run implosion against the Nationals — with another embarrassment on Sunday. Pitching for a national ESPN audience, Carrasco gave up six hits in his two innings and watched defenselessly as the Dodgers homered as many times as they struck out (three).
The Mets tried to stage a mini revolution, but it was not all right. Their 6-0 deficit became a much more manageable 6-2 in the third inning. That was as close as they’d get again. The first run came only after the Mets snapped their 0-for-25 funk with runners on base. Pete Alonso jacked a double to move Michael Conforto to third and the struggling outfielder later galloped home on a Jeff McNeil RBI groundout.
As things were getting better, the Dodgers (72-46) twisted and shouted their way to more runs. Relief pitcher Jake Reed did well to hold the line after Carrasco went down in flames, even showing impressive speed to leg out an infield hit in his first MLB plate appearance. His replacement could not say the same, though. Yennsy Diaz entered for the top of the sixth with the Mets (59-58) still only down by four. He could have used a little help from his friends, namely Michael Conforto, whose misplay at the wall became a rally sparking triple.
Pitching wise Diaz was here, there and everywhere, allowing a combination of walks, sacrifice flies, and extra base hits. Muncy’s second homer of the game did the most damage. He plated Trea Turner for the fleet-footed Dodger’s third run of the evening, sending a Diaz change-up into basically the same spot as his home run in the second inning.
When Scherzer was finally done torturing the Mets — which he did to the tune of seven strikeouts — they got to take their swings against the underbelly of the Dodgers’ middle relief. Darien Nuñez and Edwin Uceta were the nowhere men out of the Los Angeles bullpen. Nuñez loaded the bases and Uceta threw a wild pitch to push the Mets’ third run across. J.D. Davis launched a sacrifice fly to dead center field, falling a warning track away from being a game-changing grand slam.
Instead, the eventful inning ended with the Mets trailing by five, unable to come together for one final charge as the Dodgers blew it open. Infielder Brandon Drury’s magical mystery tour of a season led him to the mound, giving the remaining fans one final thing to cheer about even though Matt Beaty took him deep.
The final defensive out from the Mets came from Kevin Pillar, who took the hill after Drury and kept the Mets within 10. Four runs at the dish was actually a decent showing for this team, as the offensive production topped their single-game average. But as has become the norm, on days when they hit, the Mets don’t pitch. On days when they pitch, they often don’t hit. This was just another day in the life of the 2021 Mets.
