The Mets dropped their seventh straight game, losing to Jacob deGrom and the Rangers 8-3 in deGrom’s first game against his former team. With the stakes increasing with each consecutive loss, the pressure was on for Jonah Tong, but this game was more or less over before Jacob deGrom even took the mound.
The top of the first inning was like something out of a nightmare for Jonah Tong and the Mets. He walked two of the first three batters he faced, but then retired Jake Burger on a fly out to center.
It seemed like there was a way out of the inning for Tong, but Josh Jung dunked a single into right to plate the game’s first run and things completely unraveled from there. A single, another walk, and a double later, the Rangers were up six runs. Carlos Mendoza let Tong throw 40 pitches before he finally pulled him. It was hard to watch the 22-year-old struggle and it was excruciating to watch him walk from the mound to the dugout as a chorus of boos rained down on him. Huascar Brazobán—freshly recalled from Triple-A—finally put an end to the suffering by recording the final out of the first.
And so Jacob deGrom took the Citi Field mound for the first time in another uniform with something he rarely enjoyed as a Met: run support. A Citi Field crowd that would normally give him another resounding ovation was too stunned by the events of the previous half inning to do so. After being disposed of by deGrom quickly in the first two innings, the Mets finally broke through in the third. Francisco Alvarez homered to lead off the inning—his first long ball since returning from injury. Cedric Mullins then singled and Francisco Lindor doubled, advancing Mullins to third. Juan Soto then barely got under a deGrom fastball; he didn’t miss a home run by much, but his sacrifice fly did plate the Mets’ second run. Pete Alonso followed with another sacrifice fly and suddenly the Rangers’ lead was cut in half and it felt like there was a glimmer of hope that the Mets would make this a ballgame after all.
Brazobán heroically pitched 3 1/3 scoreless innings in total to hold the Rangers where they were and Ryne Stanek contributed 1 2/3 scoreless innings as well to give the Mets a chance to come back. But the Rangers added two runs of insurance in the seventh on a two-run homer by Dylan Moore off Gregory Soto, who continues to struggle of late. And Jacob deGrom settled in to pitch seven innings with just the three runs allowed. He struck out only two Mets, but retired 15 batters in a row—mostly via fly balls.
Reed Garrett and Ryan Helsley each navigated traffic on the base paths to pitch a scoreless inning apiece. Robert Garcia entered the game for Texas in relief of deGrom and worked around a leadoff single by Francisco Alvarez to pitch a scoreless eighth inning. Former Met Phil Maton polished off the victory for the Rangers with a 1-2-3 ninth with two strikeouts. Other than the brief moment when the Mets clawed back three runs against deGrom in the third, there wasn’t much in this game for a Citi Field crowd desperate for something to cheer about to cling onto.
The Mets are in free fall. And with many of their established pitchers unable to stop it, they have placed the burden of being the parachute on a trio of young rookies. On this night, it was too much to ask, as the Mets continue to watch their playoff hopes evaporate.
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Big Mets winner: Huascar Brazobán, +5.2% WPA
Big Mets loser: Jonah Tong, -42.3% WPA
Mets pitchers: -38.4% WPA
Mets hitters: -11.6% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Francisco Lindor’s double in the third, +7.1% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Cody Freeman’s RBI single in the first off Jonah Tong that put the Rangers up 4-0, -12.8% WPA
