Citi Field was alive and roaring as Edwin Diaz struck out his second consecutive batter Sunday to escape a bases-loaded jam in the eighth.
An inning later, the morgue opened for business.
Asked to retire five batters, Diaz got to four before wilting in the ninth, sending the Mets into the All-Star break with a gut-wrenching 6-5 loss to the Pirates.
Diaz surrendered two-out RBI singles to John Nogowski and Wilmer Difo in suffering his second blown save of the season. The Mets, who had squandered a five-run lead, then went quietly in the bottom of the ninth to finish with a split in the four-game series against an underwhelming cellar dweller.
If it wasn’t the Mets’ worst loss of the year, it’s certainly in the conversation.
“It was a tough loss, but I don’t want to call it the toughest loss,” manager Luis Rojas said. “We’ve just got to be proud of how we play this game, and today we came in to play good baseball and we couldn’t keep our offense going, we couldn’t get the last out of the game and we lost. We have got to keep moving forward, because we have been playing really good this season.”
The Mets preferred to focus on the totality of a first half in which they finished 47-40 and built a 3 ½-game lead in the NL East rather than Sunday’s letdown as they gathered in the postgame clubhouse.
Before players headed in separate directions for the four-day All-Star break, Michael Conforto said Francisco Lindor congratulated the team on a “great” first half.
“We did a lot of great things — take the time to relax and get your mind off the game,” Conforto said, repeating what he said Lindor told the team. “Work on some stuff if you want to work on some stuff and let’s come back playing like a first-place team.”
The struggle to find 27 outs was real for Rojas, who tried to get a second scoreless inning from Miguel Castro. But after the right-hander allowed consecutive singles in the eighth, Diaz was the option — for a five-out save. Castro got the call for a second inning, according to Rojas, because he had looked strong in navigating the seventh and Seth Lugo and Trevor May were unavailable.
Diaz walked Rodolfo Castro, who had already homered twice, to load the bases. The right-hander then got a gift call from plate umpire Jeremie Rehak, who punched out Michael Perez on a 2-2 slider that was several inches off the plate. Next was Ke’Bryan Hayes, who struck out to end the threat.
In the ninth, Diaz retired Adam Frazier before surrendering a double to Kevin Newman. Bryan Reynolds was retired for the second out, but Nogowski, Ben Gamel and Difo all singled to bury the Mets.
“I came in during the eighth in a big situation and got the job done,” Diaz said. “After I got two outs [in the ninth] I was thinking, ‘Make one pitch to get the inning done and the win for the team,’ but I wasn’t able.”
The Mets broke out early, using homers from Lindor and Conforto in the first inning to take a 5-0 lead against Chase De Jong. Lindor smashed a two-run homer after Brandon Nimmo’s leadoff double and Conforto, following walks to Dominic Smith and Jeff McNeil, unloaded with a three-run blast. But the Mets went quietly for the remainder, totaling only four hits after the first inning.
Rodolfo Castro’s second homer of the game, a two-run blast against Jeurys Familia in the sixth, pulled the Pirates within 5-4. Familia escaped the inning with the lead, but the Mets still had to get another nine outs.
Aaron Loup was thrust into a starting role for the first time in his major league career and gave the Mets two scoreless innings in which he allowed two hits. The left-hander had appeared in 437 games as a reliever over 10 seasons without a start.
Jerad Eickhoff, whom the Mets selected from Triple-A Syracuse before the game to provide the team with length from the bullpen, kept the lead at 5-0 into the fifth before surrendering consecutive homers to Castro and Perez.
“We’ve just got to stay neutral, stay with the same mindset every day and not just carry over and think of this tough loss we had before the break,” Rojas said. “I don’t think any of the guys are going to get impacted in that way after losing a tough game like this one.”