CLEVELAND — Even the Mets’ best pitcher this season wasn’t immune Wednesday from contributing to the team’s freefall.
Reed Garrett, the Mets’ setup ace, hardly had a brutal outing but the two hits he surrendered — with a wild pitch sandwiched in between — were just enough to sweep the Mets into Lake Erie before Adam Ottavino dunked them completely to conclude a rancid road trip.
The Mets hit three homers, but it wasn’t enough in this 6-3 loss to the Guardians at Progressive Field.
The Mets fell a season’s worst seven games below .500 with six losses in eight games on the road trip.
The Mets have lost 10 of 13 games since winning a series in St. Louis two weeks ago.
Garrett, who entered with a 0.72 ERA, allowed a single to David Fry to begin the seventh and threw a wild pitch — a ball that catcher Omar Narvaez tried to backhand rather than block with his body — before Jonathan Rodriguez’s first MLB hit, an RBI single, put the Mets behind for the first time.
Ottavino surrendered RBI doubles to Jose Ramirez and Kyle Manzardo in the eighth that gave the Guardians insurance.
The sweep was the Cleveland franchise’s first against the Mets (eight series overall since 2002).
Jose Quintana rolled into the sixth and recorded two outs with two runners on base before Andres Gimenez stroked a three-run homer to tie it 3-3.
Austin Hedges’ bunt (which died on the third-base foul line) went for a single to start the inning and Tyler Freeman doubled.
Gimenez, who arrived to Cleveland from the Mets as part of the trade for Francisco Lindor, blasted a shot over DJ Stewart’s head in right field that carried into the seats.
Quintana was removed after six innings and 70 pitches. The lefty allowed three earned runs on four hits with four strikeouts and a hit batsman.
Pete Alonso jumped on the first pitch he received from Triston McKenzie and cleared the right field fence to give the Mets a 1-0 lead.
The homer was Alonso’s 11th of the season and extended his hitting streak to eight games.
Lindor’s 11-pitch at-bat ahead of Alonso might have helped.
Jeff McNeil homered leading off the second. It was a second straight game with a homer for McNeil, whose drought was 150 at-bats before he went deep on Tuesday.
McKenzie drilled Harrison Bader in the backside on the first pitch following McNeil’s homer.
An angry Bader jawed with McKenzie as he walked to first base, but the teams remained in their respective dugouts. Bader got a measure of revenge by stealing second base.
But Bader’s greater revenge came in the fourth, when he hit the Mets’ third solo homer of the game to extend the lead to 3-0.
It continued a hot stretch for Bader, who extended his hitting streak to eight games.