On a night Kodai Senga again relied on his ghost forkballs, it was the Mets’ offense that was disappearing.
The Mets have struck out 28 times and scored one run in two games against the Nationals, making the division-worst club look like the team with two future Hall of Famers in its rotation.
Buck Showalter’s crew has dropped four straight in April after never losing more than three in a row last year, the latest a 4-1 defeat to Washington in front of 20,191 frustrated fans at Citi Field on Wednesday night.
One night after Josiah Gray kept the Mets scoreless for six innings, MacKenzie Gore threw six, one-run innings in which he punched out a career-high-tying 10.
“We knew they were pitching as well as anyone in the league coming in, and we’re seeing that,” Showalter said after the Mets (14-11) dropped a series against the Nationals (9-14) before Thursday’s finale arrives.
The Mets went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position and lacked both hits (just four) and big hits (none in the bottom of the seventh, when the Mets’ best threat arrived).
In the inning, the Nationals went to righty Carl Edwards Jr., who walked pinch-hitters Brett Baty and Daniel Vogelbach. With the Mets down two, Brandon Nimmo’s ground out moved the runners over, the tying run at second base.
Pete Alonso drops a pop up for an error in the sixth inning of the Mets’ 4-1 loss to the Nationals. Robert Sabo for NY PostBut against Hunter Harvey, the struggling Starling Marte swung through a 99 mph fastball and the struggling Francisco Lindor chased a diving splitter, with Mets fans booing a team that has stopped hitting.
“[The Nationals] deserve credit,” Lindor, 2-for-16 with four strikeouts in four games, said before adding, “And I’m getting my pitches and I’m missing them. I definitely got to be better.”
He is not alone. The Mets’ 1-through-5 hitters combined to go 1-for-19 with a walk and eight strikeouts.
Marte and Lindor had come to the plate with two runners on in the fifth inning, too, and recorded outs in succession. After a long West Coast road trip, the Mets and their best bats have returned home flat.
Former Met Dominic Smith scores a run ahead of a Tomas Nido tag during the second inning of the Nationals win. Robert Sabo for NY Post“A lot of strikeouts,” Showalter said of a Mets team that struck out the least of any club in the NL last year. “I’ll always give [the Nationals] credit for that, but it’s something that we’ve been good at and will be again.”
Until a third-inning run — on an Eduardo Escobar hit to right that outfielder Lane Thomas misplayed into a triple, followed by an RBI single from Marte — the Mets had gone 14 straight innings without a run. Following that frame, the Mets went six straight innings without a run.
The Mets, who are hardly looking like a team ready for the Braves to invade next, were all-around sloppy in a game in which they recorded three errors, including a dropped pop-up from Pete Alonso.
With the Mets’ gloves poor and the bats silent, Senga had to be perfect, which he was not. In his first year in MLB, the righty is proving he can pitch well, but he has yet to prove he can pitch well for long.
Senga allowed two runs in five eventful innings in which he consistently navigated around traffic. He allowed five hits and four walks but was nasty when he needed to be, striking out seven.
“I just didn’t have very good control early on in the game and that just led on and led to the high pitch count,” Senga, who needed 48 pitches to get through two innings, said through an interpreter.
In five starts this season, Senga has completed six innings only once and needed 94 pitches to claw through five Wednesday.
The Nationals took a lead they did not give up in the second inning, when a Keibert Ruiz walk, Dominic Smith double and a swinging bunt from Thomas scored one run. CJ Abrams then bounced an RBI single for the second.
Kodai Senga, who allowed two runs in five innings, throw to first to keep a runner close during the first inning of the Mets’ loss. Robert Sabo for NY PostSenga proceeded to strike out Victor Robles, Alex Call and Jeimer Candelario to get out of the inning. Those would be the only runs Senga surrendered, but there were no easy frames.
The Nationals tacked on runs against Jeff Brigham in the seventh (a Candelario solo home run) and Adam Ottavino in the eighth (a single from Call that drove in Robles).
Those clutch hits brought the gap to three runs, which is a mountain to the Mets these days.
“This is one of those stretches,” Lindor said. “We have been a group that has been able to turn the page quick.”
