Coming off his first rough start of the season, Noah Syndergaard squared off against Padres lefty Drew Pomeranz on Friday. Thor came into the game leading the league in FIP by a healthy margin (1.41, .38 lower than Stephen Strasburg) despite surrendering four runs to the Giants last time out. Pomeranz meanwhile, seems to finally be blossoming in San Diego after being traded for Ubaldo Jiminez in 2011 and bouncing around for a couple of years.
Things got off to a rocky start for Syndergaard, as Jon Jay led off the bottom of the first by slashing a double down the left field line. A ground out and a sacrifice fly later, Jay came home with the game’s first run. Jay would get to Syndergaard again in the fifth, grounding a ball up the middle to score Jemile Weeks and give the Padres a two-run lead.
While those were the only two runs Thor surrendered, this start was a mixed bag. He clearly was more conscious of the run game, cutting about a tenth of a second off his delivery and throwing over much more frequently. These changes seemed to pay early dividends when Alexei Ramirez was thrown out in the second, but Weeks and Ramirez would steal successfully later in the game. Syndergaard still has work to do in this area.
Syndergaard’s pitch mix is also of note, as he used either his two-seam or four-seam fastball 66% of the time. This shift was particularly evident during Derek Norris’s at-bat in the fourth, where Thor threw 10 straight fastballs before finally mixing in a slider to strike out Norris looking. The cause of this change is unclear – perhaps Syndergaard felt he didn’t have good breaking stuff today or maybe it’s a quirk of new catcher Rene Rivera – but going away from his elite secondaries seemed to hurt Syndergaard. He surrendered six hits over six innings, allowing plenty of hard contact. Leaning heavily on his fastball also limited Syndergaard’s ability to finish batters, as he tallied only five strikeouts.
Meanwhile, the Mets offense was blanked by another Padres starter, as Asdrubal Cabrera managed the only hit against Drew Pomeranz in his five innings of work. The Mets did put men on base, taking three walks and elevating Pomeranz’s pitch count early, but they failed to present any real threat through the first six innings.
In the top of the seventh, Cabrera lined his (and the Mets’) second hit of the day into left against lefty Ryan Buchter. Wilmer Flores followed that with a double into the left field corner, leading to one of the worst sends by a third base coach you’ll ever see. Tim Tueffel, perhaps wary of the Mets inability to score runs in the last two games, waived Cabrera home despite Alexei Ramirez receiving the ball in short left field as Cabrera got to the third base bag. Cabrera appeared to be a dead duck at home.
Ramirez’s throw beat Cabrera to the plate by 40 feet, and Cabrera’s head first slide never even reached the plate. However, Derek Norris clearly dropped the ball as he rolled over after the play, never completing a transfer. Nevertheless, home plate umpire Jerry Layne ruled Cabrera out, and the call stood upon review. How a runner can be out when the ball is dropped on the tag is beyond anyone’s understanding, but the incompetence of umpires is nothing new (and the egregiousness of this missed call was nowhere near that of the called third strike against David Ortiz, but I digress).
Neither team threatened in the seventh, and Addison Reed was able to strand runners on the corners in the bottom of the eighth. In the top of the ninth, David Wright and Lucas Duda worked walks against Padres closer Fernando Rodney, but Asdrubal Cabrera and Alejandro De Aza both struck out with the tying runs on base and the Mets ninth inning rally fell short for a second straight day.
The loss continues a long time Met tradition of losing in Petco Park. The Padres have a 28-14 record at home against the Mets, their best win percentage against any team since the opening of Petco. The current 11-game west coast road trip (always a nightmare for Mets fans) has started with two consecutive losses, which also ensures that the Mets’s streak of consecutive series won will stop at six. On the plus side, this is just the first time in several weeks that the Mets lost back-to-back games, and the Nationals got destroyed by the Cubs, so the Mets remain only 1.5 games back of first.
Photo credit: Jake Roth – USA Today Sports