Getaway Day: As Freddy Peralta Departs, Mets Drop Third in a Row to Marlins

Marlins 2 Mets 0 (Citi Field, Flushing, NY)

Mets record: 47-66

Mets streak: Lost 3

WP - Sandy Alcantara (12-6)

LP - Robert Stock (0-1)

SV - Pete Fairbanks (17)

Seat on the Korner: Sandy Alcantara

We select a Star of the Game and virtually invite him to take his Seat on the Korner — just as Ralph Kiner did on WOR-TV Channel 9 during the early days of the New York Mets.

Continuing the tradition of Rheingold Beer sponsoring Kiner’s Korner, this season every seat is proudly presented by The Main Event Restaurant & Sports Bar.

With locations in Plainview and Farmingdale, The Main Event features 80+ HD TVs, fresh daily seafood, and Black Angus certified steaks—so you never have to choose between great food and the big game.

On a day that started with the Mets trading Freddy Peralta for three Tampa Bay Rays prospects, Marlins ace Sandy Alcantara gave his team exactly what the Mets thought they were getting when they acquired Peralta in the off-season: six innings of four-hit, shutout ball. Alcantara came out in the seventh as his pitch count crossed 100 (Peralta usually only needed four innings to reach that plateau), but he once again demonstrated who he has been the Marlins' ace for so many seasons. Take a seat next to Ralph, and talk a little pitching.

Need to Know

• The Mets were shut out for the 11th time this year.

• Pregame roster moves: Say hello to Robert Stock (more about him later) and Bryce Conley, two right-handed pitchers. Say goodbye to Kevin Herget and Jonathan Pintaro. Pintaro was optioned to AAA Syracuse. Herget added to his collection of being DFA's by the Mets.

• Weird fourth inning for the Marlins, who fell victim -- in both halves -- to the speed-up rules implemented in 2023. The top of the inning ended with batter Griffin Conine being called out on strikes for failing to engage the pitcher within the allowed eight seconds. In the bottom half, Sandy Alcantara was called for a balk when he stepped off the rubber after twice making unsuccessful pickoff throws with Carson Benge on first.

• Jorge Polanco's hitless streak ran to 0-for-26, including striking out with the bases loaded and nobody out in the seventh and a man on first in the ninth.

• With an eighth-inning double, Francisco Lindor extended his hitting streak against the Marlins to 23 games.

• With no game Monday, the Mets get to follow trade deadline deals from the comfort of their Cleveland hotel rooms. Their next game, Tuesday night, should see Sean Manaea getting the ball for the Mets against Joey Cantillo.

  
  

Turning Point

The Mets had Sandy Alcantara on the ropes in the seventh: bases loaded with nobody out, trailing 1-0., after a Luis Robert Jr. single, a Jared Young single stretched into a double and a Marcus Semien walk. Up came 0-for-the-season Jorge Polanco, who struck out, and I-never-met-a-pitch-I-couldn't-swing- wildly-at Francisco Alvarez, who tried to hit a five-run homer when a medium-depth fly ball would have tied the game. Alvarez, of course, also whiffed. A.J. Ewing then grounded out weakly to second to end the inning. This lack of plate discipline (we're talking Polanco and Alvarez) has cost the Mets all-too-often this season. After that, it seemed like it was all over but the whimpering.

Three Keys

Stock Footage

Robert Stock, added to the roster to take the start today with Freddy Peralta on the way out the door, defines journeyman. He has previously pitched for the San Diego Padres, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, the Doosan Bears in Korea and for the Israeli national baseball team in the 2023 World Baseball Classic. He is a reliever who reinvented himself as a starter, and is so into analytics that he has his own website to provide analytical information to other pitchers.

Stock was with the Mets in Spring Training but ended up on the 60-day disabled list with thoracic outlet syndrome.-- returning to action in the minor leagues just as that time period expired. As a 36-year-old with only 75 major league innings, he would seem an unlikely candidate to turn in a quality start.

But quality start he turned in: five innings (one more than he had ever thrown in a major league start), three hits, only one run -- a Joe Mack home run. Will it earn him another turn in the rotation, with Freddy Peralta on his way to Tampa Bay? A lot will probably depend on whether the Mets also trade Clay Holmes, who made a rehab (showcase?) start in Brooklyn, but on merit, he probably earned another look.

Hello, I Must Be Going

Huascar Brazoban pulled the big fakeout when cameras caught him shaking hands with his bullpen colleagues. Most people read that as a sign he had been traded and was saying goodbye. A couple of innings later, word was passed that no, Brazoban was not part of a deal but was actually saying hello. Not nice, Huascar.

Alternate explanation: Brazoban heard he was part of a deal that fell apart between handshakes. And to prove it was all a false alarm, Brazoban pitched the eighth, walking a batter but not allowing a run. Did that increase his trade value? (Brooks Raley, another reliever perhaps auditioning for another team, hurled a perfect sixth).

Watching And Waiting

You have to feel for Andy Green, trying to manage a game not knowing who will be in the dugout in the late innings. With all sorts of trade rumors swirling, Green used Brooks Raley, Luke Weaver and Huascar Brazoban, and even Tyrone Taylor, inserted as a pinch runner in the ninth. Green also used Devin Williams in the eighth to keep the Marlins to a one-run lead. True to form, by the time the inning ended, the Marlins had a two-run lead.