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It is never the culprit that you expect. If this is a final stab in the Mets season, it was Lars Nootbaar who helped stab.
Nootbaar, a young Cardinals outfielder appearing in his 44th career game and not a description of a Snickers, will be remembered in Queens as a thief, taking on what could have been a home run from Pete Alonso in the 11- 4 losses against the Cardinals at Citi Field.
There was a lot of frustration in the Mets’ third straight loss, but the image of Alonso, stopped between first and second and hunched over in disbelief, will remain that of Wednesday night.
There were two runners in the bottom of the seventh in a game where the Mets were down by four when the big first baseman, who had already scored once, led a change from TJ McFarland to deep center-right.
Minutes earlier – and three batters earlier – Nootbaar was watching from the dugout, but the Cardinals made a double change in which Noorbaar replaced right fielder Dylan Carlson on a pitcher change. Noorbaar drifted back, must have felt the wall and stood up, his gloved left hand well above the orange line that determines a home run, and circled him. He hit the ground and triggered a hand pump as McFarland did the same.
“Pete was one foot away from a home run,” said Jeff McNeil.
From the canoe, Luis Rojas thought Alonso had had enough.
“The kid played a great game,” said the Mets manager. “He just entered the game and he was ready. You have to credit it too.
What could have been a one-run game in the seventh moved on to the eighth, when the Cardinals scored three times and made the game laugh.
The Mets season could come down to a series of assumptions, which is how Wednesday’s game went. It wasn’t just Alonso who wondered if his swing had changed the game.
In the fifth, the sizzling Javier Baez seemed to have done his magic again. With two outs and two strikeouts in a game, the Mets were down four again as he punched a Jon Lester change to the center field wall. What would have been a three-run home run with a few extra push-ups died in the glove of Harrison Bader, who hit the wall to make the hook.
In total, the Mets left 10 runners on base and moved up to 1 for 14 with runners in scoring position, which frustrated Rojas the most.
“For me that was the biggest difference in the game,” Rojas said.
Their sticks were quiet in large places, and the St. Louis voltigeurs’ gloves were noisy. A Nootbaar looks sweet, but he left the Mets with a feeling of bitterness.
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