Brewers 4 – Mets 3
It’s an immutable truth of Major League Baseball: The Brewers need help, and lots of it. Yesterday afternoon, the last-place Mets provided plenty of assistance in the true spirit of bad baseball.
Help came from walking the opposing pitcher to continue a rally, getting doubled off second base on a lineout to center and allowing a staggeringly slow baserunner to score from second on a wild pitch.
In short, it was a horrible end to a depressing four-game series, as the Mets lost 4-3 to Milwaukee.
“They’ve played us tough,” said Art Howe, who watched the Brew Crew take five of six at Shea Stadium this season.
One of the most miserable four-game series in the last 12 years ended with the Mets dropping three of four to the horrendous Brewers. The two teams now have identically putrid 44-64 records.
How lousy has it gotten at Shea? You could’ve swapped uniforms of the teams yesterday and nobody would’ve blinked. The Mets had six rookies in their lineup, and played like it.
Rookie Aaron Heilman (1-4) was certainly hard to hit, walking six and whiffing a career-high seven in his seventh career start. Heilman’s big mistake came in the sixth, when he walked starter Matt Kinney (7-8) with a man on second and two outs.
Howe considered pulling Heilman then but allowed him to face Scott Podsednik. Heilman fell behind 2-0 before Podsednik chopped a fastball up the middle for an RBI single that did chase the Met righty.
“He’s down 1-0 with two outs, I’m trying to build his confidence,” Howe said. “Those are little tests you have to give young pitchers along the way.”
The laconic Heilman is struggling at the major-league level after a dominating collegiate career at Notre Dame. The 2001 first-round pick allowed six hits and two earned runs over 5 2/3 innings, representing his second-best start to date.
“He was pretty dominating down in Triple A,” catcher Jason Phillips said. “Big-league hitters, you can get them one time, but then they’re going to see some more pitches and really make you come to them.
“That’s maybe where Aaron has to bear down a little bit more and finish off hitters.”
The Mets squandered numerous chances, leaving the bases loaded with one out in the first. A seventh-inning rally was extinguished when Tony Clark took off from second when pinch-hitter Jeff Duncan lined out to center. Clark was easily doubled up.
“I read it falling in, and it stayed up,” Clark said. “A ball off the bat of a left-hander, you expect it to run a little bit, away from [the center fielder]. It ended up staying true.”
It was fitting the winning run came from plodding catcher Eddie Perez, who scored from second standing up on an eighth-inning wild pitch by Edwin Almonte, whose pitch bounced off the plate and then off the mask of Phillips, careening towards the Mets’ dugout.
The ball stopped in a corner between the wall of the photo well and the dugout, making it difficult for Clark to retrieve. His throw was late.
“It was an interesting bounce,” Clark said. “I haven’t seen many balls ricochet like that.”
Added Phillips: “It was a bad break.”
Perez’s run gave Milwaukee a 4-1 lead, and although the Mets scored twice in the eighth, that rally and another proved futile.
“You’ve got to force your own breaks,” Phillips said. “Teams that are lucky seem to force their own breaks.”
