NEW YORK _ It sounded like an ultimatum.
General manager Sandy Alderson called on the Mets on Friday afternoon to win more games to save their season and perhaps, their aces. But the summer in Queens took another turn for the worse hours later when an 0-2 pitch went awry.
Dodger first baseman Cody Bellinger blasted a fastball left up over the middle of the plate, sending one of Zack Wheeler's few mistakes into the second deck in right. Bellinger's sixth-inning grand slam made all the difference in the Mets' 5-2 loss on Friday night at Citi Field. Yasiel Puig added insurance in the ninth with a solo homer that just cleared the left-field wall, and Kenley Jensen struck out Dominic Smith to end the game. It dropped the Mets' record to 31-42 and extended their losing streak to four games.
Tough decisions may lie ahead.
"There are a few teams that are going to be buyers," Alderson said Friday when asked to describe the club's situation. "There are a few teams that are already sellers. And there are a bunch of teams in the middle. I would put us in the middle."
Wheeler was nearly perfect until giving up the long home run. He started the game with a 1-2-3 inning and struck out the side in the second. With a fastball clocked near 100, he struck out seven batters over seven serviceable innings. But his night unraveled with a pair of walks to begin the sixth, then with a single to Matt Kemp. Bellinger turned around the third straight fastball to stun an announced crowd of 32,625 at Citi Field.
The Mets' highlight came from Jose Bautista, who had a two-run shot in the sixth inning to cut the Dodgers' lead in half. It was Bautista's first home run as a Met and came in his 28th game.
"He's a professional hitter," manager Mickey Callaway said. "I've played against him when he had his All-Star years. I've had to come up with game plans to try to get him out and he's always been pretty good at laying off pitches."
"It's tough to do it in the roles he's been in especially going from a couple of teams and not getting to play every day."
Bautista finished the day by going 2-for-4 and made a sliding catch in right to rob Justin Turner. The veteran outfielder has raised his batting average from .177 to .205 in just over a week.
"Let's be careful about writing off players because they're 30 years old or they haven't performed well over the first couple of months of the season," Alderson said before the game. "You have to be careful about making judgments over relatively short periods of time. Now is two and a half months a short period of time? From a baseball standpoint, that certainly can be yes."
