The Mets fell to the Dodgers 4-0 as a lineup that seems more hapless by the day was held scoreless for a second straight day and for the third time in four games.
After the Mets set the appropriate tone by going down 1-2-3 in the top of the first, it appeared as if this game was going to be effectively over rather quickly as David Peterson—coming off two straight rough outings—got into trouble immediately in the bottom of the first. After getting ahead of Shohei Ohtani—a hitter Peterson has historically
dominated in his career, interestingly enough—0-2, Peterson hit him square in the back with a pitch. Peterson then walked Kyle Tucker and allowed an RBI single to Will Smith to put the Dodgers on the board early. He then issued yet another walk to Teoscar Hernández to load the bases still with no one out and just as the Dodgers seemed poised for a crooked number that would send many Mets fans on the East Coast off to bed, Peterson struck out the next three batters in a row to somehow limit the damage to just a single run.
But these days a single run is all the opposition needs and today turned out to be no different. The Mets hit into a couple of hard outs in the early innings against Justin Wrobleski but the bats were otherwise completely inept again. Even the characteristic working deep counts was absent tonight; the Mets went down quickly and easily, frame after frame.
Peterson bounced back to pitch a 1-2-3 second inning, but the Dodgers more or less put the game away in the bottom of the third. Peterson walked Tucker again to lead off the inning and after retiring the next batter he faced, Peterson induced a potential double play grounder off the bat of Freddie Freeman on which Francisco Lindor made a nifty flip to Marcus Semien at second base, but Semien could not get the ball out of his glove to turn two, so a potentially inning-ending play turned into first and third and two outs. Of course, the Dodgers capitalized, as good teams do. The very next batter Andy Pages took Peterson deep for a three-run homer to give the Dodgers a 4-0 lead, which feels awfully insurmountable for the Mets right now. Peterson did ultimately last five innings and struck out seven batters (including Max Muncy thrice), but walked four and was charged with four runs, falling to 0-3 on the season.
Meanwhile, Wrobleski was perfect through 4 1/3 innings before Jorge Polanco laced a one-out single in the fifth for the Mets’ first hit (and first base runner). But Francisco Alvarez promptly grounded into a double play, ensuring that Wrobleski still faced the minimum through five innings. In fact, Wrobleski—who hadn’t gone more than five innings in any of his previous starts—pitched eight scoreless innings. He only struck out two batters, but he allowed just two hits, as the Mets seemed eager to ground out as efficiently as possible.
What else is there even to say about this embarrassing stinker of a game in Los Angeles? The bullpen pitched well. Craig Kimbrel contributed a scoreless sixth inning and Joey Gerber threw two scoreless innings in his Mets debut, leg kicking his way to an impressive five strikeouts along the way. Tommy Pham also made his 2026 Mets debut tonight, but his was less successful than Gerber’s. Like pretty much everyone else in the lineup, Pham took an 0-fer.
You know what they say, though. Every day you have a chance to see something in a baseball game you’ve never seen before and that did happen tonight. During the bottom of the sixth, Francisco Alvarez called time for a mound visit and was granted it by the home plate umpire, but Craig Kimbrel—apparently in his own world—did not realize time had been granted and almost threw a pitch with Alvarez already halfway out to the mound, resulting in an amusing mid-trot squat by Alvarez and a hastily aborted delivery by Kimbrel to narrowly avoid something weird and potentially dangerous transpiring.
But that was just about the only interesting thing that happened in an otherwise uneventful loss that marked the Mets’ sixth defeat in a row, dropping them to 7-10 on the season. The Mets have better pitchers going the next two days, but the Dodgers do too, so we shall see if the offense is able to find some sort of spark and salvage the series.
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Big Mets winner: Craig Kimbrel and Joey Gerber, +1% WPA
Big Mets loser: David Peterson, -20% WPA
Mets pitchers: -18% WPA
Mets hitters: -32% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Jorge Polanco’s single in the fifth, +1.9% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Andy Pages’ three-run homer in the third inning, -21.3% WPA
