NY Mets struggling to grab NL wild card spot; now must keep an eye on scoreboard Sunday

MILWAUKEE — A wild card spot is right there for the taking for the Mets, but they continue to struggle mightily in their quest to grab it.

On Saturday night on the road against the Brewers, it was the National League Central champions that appeared to be the desperate bunch. Now, the Mets will have one eye fixed to the scoreboard on Sunday.

The Mets offense only collected two hits and struck out 11 times against six Brewers pitchers as they were dispatched 6-0 by the Brewers in front of 39,637 fans at American Family Field.

"Sometimes days like these are gonna happen," Brandon Nimmo said. "It's unfortunate that it's happening right now, but all you can do is you just pick it up. You go shoot your shots the next day and you hope that it turns around."

It was the first time the Mets have dropped three straight games since Aug. 9-13. During their three latest defeats, including two in a row and one to the Braves on Tuesday, the Mets have managed a combined five runs on 13 hits.

"I'm not necessarily worried about it. I just think we've played two good teams and just haven't played our best baseball," Pete Alonso said. "You can't win a game with two hits. They pitched really well today. And yeah, the offense, we didn't do our part."

The Mets pitching staff delivered its own strong performance for the most part with 18 strikeouts, but the Brewers collected two runs off Jose Quintana in the third inning and four off Reed Garrett in the eighth.

Mets' playoffs scenarios: They Keep an eye on Diamondbacks

The Mets are fortunate that the Diamondbacks are in their own late-season slide.

With the Diamondbacks losing five of their last six games, including a 3-0 loss to the Padres on Saturday, the Mets remained in the third Wild Card spot in the National League y virtue of the season tiebreaker.

The Mets, who slipped to 87-72 with Saturday's defeat, can now clinch a playoff spot with two wins in their last three games or one win and a Diamondbacks loss on Sunday.

Carlos Mendoza does not want to place his team's fate in the hands of another team. He emphasized that the Mets need to win on Sunday.

"Not winning the past couple of days, it's putting us in a difficult situation here, but you got to come back tomorrow and we have to win a game tomorrow," Mendoza said. "That's the bottom line. And then see where we're at the end of the day tomorrow, and then go to Atlanta and see what we got."

The Mets are now one game behind the Braves for the second Wild Card spot. And the presence of Monday's doubleheader between the two sides on Monday could depend on Sunday's results.

Mets’ lineup struggles mount

The Mets are struggling at the worst possible time in the 2024 season.

On Saturday night, they only managed three baserunners in the first seven innings. Twice, the Mets had a runner on second base with no outs and could not push him across.

Tobias Myers did the bulk of the work for the Brewers, with four scoreless innings with five strikeouts between the second and fifth. Then, Joel Payamps, Aaron Ashby and Nick Mears all tossed perfect frames in succession.

"I'm not gonna say they're panicking or they're pressing, it's just the reality is that we having a hard time getting things going right now," Mendoza said.

In the second inning, Pete Alonso moved two bases on an errant throw from Brewers shortstop Willy Adames but then was stranded there with three straight outs.

In the top of the fifth inning, Starling Marte knocked a leadoff double off Tobias Myers into the right-field corner and reached third on a ground ball to the left side. Harrison Bader knocked a lazy line drive to Joey Ortiz and Luisangel Acuña flew out to left field.

"I just think that we just need to just flat out execute," Alonso said. "We had opportunities today to manufacture runs. We had guys on second less than two outs and didn't capitalize on that."

Jose Quintana sees dominance end

Jose Quintana did what he could to keep the Mets in the game but one rough inning was enough with the Brewers holding their offense in check.

Quintana struck out a season-high nine batters but succumbed to his first major pressure in the bottom of the fourth inning.

Adames drove a single up the middle and both Rhys Hoskins and Isaac Collins walked to load the bases. The Mets veteran left-hander worked a full count against Joey Ortiz, but the Brewers third baseman lofted an outside curveball into left-center field for a two-run single that accounted for all the runs.

I" think the issue was the walk against Collins. I expect to do a better job in there," Quintana said. "After that against Ortiz, he put a good swing on that breaking ball. It was soft contact, but that hurts a lot giving up those two runs especially with the game so close."

Quintana finished with two earned runs allowed one five hits and two walks across 4⅓ innings. It was the first time in seven starts that Quintana allowed more than one earned run. He saw his scoreless streak end at 25⅔ scoreless innings.

David Peterson will try to fill the role of stopper in Sunday's start against the Brewers.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NY Mets struggling to grab NL wild card spot; now must keep an eye on scoreboard Sunday