SEATTLE — T-Mobile Park became Tee Off on the Mets Park, sending the visiting team home Sunday as a downtrodden wreck.
True, the Mets avoided being shut out for the first time in three games, but just barely. The team’s first trip to the Pacific Northwest in seven years ended with a 12-1 loss to the Mariners that swept the Mets back to New York looking for answers.
More resembling the team that fell double digits below .500 in May before rallying into the playoff race over the next two months, the Mets went 4-6 on the four-city trip that also included stops in Anaheim, St. Louis and Colorado.
They remain a half-game behind Atlanta for the NL’s third wild card.
Over three days in Seattle, the Mets didn’t appear to belong on the same field with the Mariners, getting outscored 22-1 and going 23 straight innings without scoring a run until Jeff McNeil’s homer in the sixth on Sunday. Including a scoreless ninth on Thursday in Colorado, the Mets went 24 innings between runs.
Any regrouping will have to wait until Tuesday, when the Mets begin a nine-game homestand that starts with the A’s and Marlins, two teams going nowhere fast. But the Mets (61-57) also have played down to their level of competition in recent weeks — they are 5-5 since the All-Star break against the Marlins, Angels and Rockies, the three teams with losing records they have faced during that stretch.
Luis Severino had a third straight outing in which he allowed at least four earned runs. The right-hander pitched five innings and surrendered four earned runs on six hits with two walks and eight strikeouts. Severino, who allowed two homers, saw his ERA increase to 4.17. He has lasted five innings or fewer in his past four starts.
Jorge Polanco’s homer leading off the second put the Mets behind 1-0. Severino threw a full-count sinker at 98 mph that Polanco hit over the fence in left-center. Dominic Canzone doubled later in the inning, but was left stranded.
Canzone’s double leading off the fifth started a rally that helped the Mariners take a 4-0 lead. Leo Rivas bunted Canzone to third and with two outs Randy Arozarena hit a slow grounder that Francisco Lindor barehanded but dropped as he prepared to throw. Canzone scored on the RBI single and Cal Raleigh crushed Severino’s next pitch for a two-run homer. It was the fifth blast surrendered by Severino in his past three starts.
McNeil’s two-out homer in the sixth ended the team’s scoreless drought at 24 innings and pulled the Mets within 4-1. McNeil’s homer was his sixth in 22 games since the All-Star break.
Ryne Stanek loaded the bases in the sixth and surrendered an RBI single to Rivas that extended the Mariner lead to 5-1.
Adam Ottavino replaced Stanek with one out and the bases loaded and got Victor Robles to hit a slow grounder that McNeil backhanded and threw away, allowing two additional runs.
Before the inning was complete, Raleigh hit a three-run homer that buried the Mets in a 10-1 hole.