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Try it freeCINCINNATI — Brandon Sproat was excellent, displaying the kind of upside that the Mets can dream on for both the rest of this season and the future.
Maybe one day in the coming weeks or coming seasons he can be the type of front-line arm that the Reds used Sunday to throttle the Mets’ offense.
Sproat was promising but Hunter Greene was all but perfect in besting the debuting rookie and bulldozing a Mets lineup that finished with three hits in a 3-2 Reds victory that narrowed the playoff picture.
The Mets (76-67) lost the series and ground in the wild-card chase, four games ahead of Cincinnati and 3 ½ ahead of the Giants before their game had finished.
In his first major league game, Sproat jumped into a rotation that already includes Nolan McLean and Jonah Tong and looked like he belonged.
With a six-pitch mix, breaking stuff that continually elicited weak contact and a sinker that touched 98 mph, the hard-throwing righty picked up from where he left off with Triple-A Syracuse and did not allow a hit until there was one out in the sixth inning.
But that hit — a looped single to Noelvi Marte — was followed by an RBI double from Elly De La Cruz and RBI single Austin Hays, which gave the Reds their second and third runs of the day to pull away from a thoroughly overmatched Mets offense.
Jeff McNeil’s ground out to end the top of the second inning represented progress: The first five Mets hitters to step up against the flamethrowing Greene struck out.
Greene cruised for seven one-hit, one-run, 12-strikeout innings in which he was touched once (a Brett Baty home run in the third) and not again.
The Reds ace walked Pete Alonso to begin the seventh, the first and only Mets leadoff hitter to reach base on the afternoon.
Greene might as well have shrugged. His pitch count rising into the upper 90s, he used a 99.6 mph heater to strike out Brandon Nimmo, 100.4 mph four-seamer to sit down Starling Marte and 101.1 mph heat to overwhelm McNeil.
With Greene out of the game, the Mets rallied in the ninth.
Juan Soto homered with one out, and Pete Alonso (an error from Elly De La Cruz) and Brandon Nimmo (single) reached.
But Marte grounded into a double play to make the Mets 0-59 this season when trailing after eight innings.
Wasted was the first six, encouraging innings of Sproat’s major league career, pulled after letting up three runs on three hits and four walks while striking out seven.
In a rarity, one of the better pitching prospects in the majors gave up his first career run before his first career hit. Sproat shut down the Reds through three innings before walking Marte to begin the bottom of the fourth. A steal, ground out and sacrifice fly later, the Reds had tied the game.