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MIAMI – Mission unfinished.
Not only were the Mets supposed to get fat in Washington last weekend (they didn’t), the plan was to beat another doormat from South Beach to South Beach before heading home for the Subway series.
Instead, the Marlins pounced on the lifeless group, using Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s home run against Jeurys Familia in the eighth inning to beat the Mets, 3-2, at LoanDepot Park.
The Mets lost two of three games in the series and finished 4-4 on a road trip they hoped would propel them to the top of NL East. They are now five games behind the Braves.
“There are teams that are not fighting for the playoffs and they are focused,” said Javier Baez. “They have this feeling that we need: not to try so hard, to see the ball and slow everything down, and that’s the way we need to be.”
Familia entered the eighth and recorded two strikeouts before Chisholm thrust 98 mph ballast into the upper right deck to give the Marlins their margin of victory. The Mets led 2-0 in the sixth but couldn’t add, finishing 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position.
Pete Alonso tripled in the lead in the eighth, but that was wasted as the Mets failed to start the race. Baez and JD Davis both touched the left side, and after Michael Conforto hopped intentionally, Richard Bleier struck out pinch hitter Jeff McNeil.
“It’s happened a few times this season, but we’ve been better lately,” said manager Luis Rojas, referring to the failure to bring the third-place rider in without an out. “We expect the guys to improve as we move forward after this game. ”
The Marlins tied 2-2 in the seventh on their third infield of the set. Lewis Brinson hit a dribbler to the third Brad Hand lined up and rebounded past Alonso, allowing Isan Diaz to score from the second. Conforto recovered the ball and sent off Brinson in second to end the set.
Hand, after replacing Marcus Stroman, allowed Diaz a single, but the Mets then paused: Hand unloaded a pitch to the safety net, but the ball went back to James McCann, who nailed the runner pinch Alex Jackson trying to reach third.
Stroman lasted 6 1/3 innings and gave up one run on four hits with seven strikeouts. The right-hander left after being fooled by the firecracker from Sandy Leon who became a single on the infield in the seventh.
“We know we’re in every game,” Stroman said. “What makes it even more frustrating is that we’re kinda there at the end and some things don’t go our way and then it feels like you’ve got a loss.”
The Marlins edged closer in the sixth on the choice of RBI outfielder Chisholm who reduced the Mets’ lead to 2-1. Stroman threw Eddy Alvarez to start the round and gave up a single to Miguel Rojas who put the runners in the corners. Chisholm made it all the way to third after scoring on the ground, but Stroman struck out Jesus Sanchez at bat to end the threat.
A two-way trade to Marlins left-hander Jesus Luzarado gave the Mets a 1-0 lead in the first. Baez broke through the fence in the center-right – on a rebound, for a double – before Luzarado successively drove Davis and Conforto. On the latter, Luzarado unleashed his second crazy pitch of the round, allowing Baez to score.
Baez scored in the second inning, extending the Mets’ lead to 2-0. The explosion was Baez’s seventh in 28 games since the Mets. It was his fifth home run since returning from the injured list on August 22.
“We had a guy who moved our attack basically tonight, and that was Javy, with his basic running skills and the home run he hit,” Rojas said.
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