The Mets are still chasing the version of the Dodgers Steve Cohen once imagined - and Saturday night in Queens was another reminder of how far away that is.
New York fell 4-3 to the defending champions, wasting a strong start from Nolan McLean and another late push that just didn’t quite go far enough. Tyrone Taylor gave the crowd some life with a pinch-hit, two-run double in the eighth, but the comeback stopped there as the Mets dropped another one in a season that keeps slipping further out of reach.
McLean looked sharp early, breezing through the first two innings before the Dodgers broke the game open in the third. Kyle Tucker launched a homer off the right-field foul pole to end McLean’s run of 19 straight innings without allowing an earned run, and the inning quickly unraveled from there.
Dalton Rushing singled, then Shohei Ohtani rolled a double-play ball that the Mets couldn’t finish. Brett Baty’s throw to second hit Rushing’s helmet, and the mess only got worse when Francisco Lindor was charged with an error after the ball bounced away.
Andy Pages followed with another grounder the Mets couldn’t turn, bringing home Rushing, and a passed ball by Francisco Alvarez scored Pages to make it 3-0. Max Muncy struck out to finally close the ugly frame.
The Dodgers weren’t done adding pressure. In the fifth, Teoscar Hernandez sent a ball just beyond the reach of a diving Carson Benge, and Pages came through with a single down the right-field line to score Hernandez and stretch the lead to 4-0.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto did his part for Los Angeles, working six innings and striking out five. Tucker’s homer and Yamamoto’s outing carried extra sting for the Mets, since both were high-profile free-agent targets for New York in recent years before ending up with the Dodgers. Tucker, who has had a rough first season in Los Angeles, has started to turn things around this weekend, homering for the second straight game against the Mets.
McLean still finished with a strong line of his own. He earned his fifth straight quality start and struck out seven, even while the defense and Alvarez’s passed ball forced him to work harder than he should have. Lindor later helped clean things up with an unassisted double play in the sixth.
New York’s offense kept running into the same problem. The Mets came in having gone 7-for-72 with runners in scoring position over their previous 10 games, and that trend hung around for most of the night. They threatened briefly in the first when Bo Bichette and Benge each singled with two outs, but Luis Robert Jr. struck out on a full count to end the inning.
The Mets finally got on the board in the fifth. With two outs, Bichette chopped a broken-bat single that brought home Baty from third, trimming the deficit to 4-1. Before that hit, New York had been 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position in the game.
The eighth inning gave the Mets one last opening. Edgardo Henriquez hit Benge with a pitch and walked Robert Jr. to start the frame, but he struck out Jorge Polanco and Marcus Semien before being lifted for Tanner Scott.
Andy Green then sent Taylor up to hit for Baty, and Taylor ripped a ball down the left-field line to score Benge and Robert Jr. Scott regrouped, struck out AJ Ewing, and ended the rally.
That was as close as New York got. Lindor, Bichette, and Benge were retired in order in the ninth, and the Mets fell to 43-62. They are now 7-12 in July as the season continues to grind through the summer.
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The appeal here is less about one headline name than about fit, with the Mets potentially targeting a young catcher and a pair of upside plays who bring very different skill sets. It is still just a possibility, though, which is why this kind of deal is the sort of idea that can split a fan base before it ever gets close to becoming real. [Read more 🡒]