Mets Dig Early Hole, Waste Opportunities in Lopsided Loss

Reds 12 Mets0 (Great American Ballpark, Cincinnati OH)

Mets record: 32-40

Mets streak: Lost 1

WP - Chase Burns (8-1)

LP - Tobias Myers (0-2)

Seat on the Korner: Eugenio Suarez

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.

Last year, playing for Arizona and Seattle, third baseman Eugenio Suarez hit 49 home runs and drove in 118, but then lingered on the free agent market in the offseason before signing with Cincinnati, the team he broke in with, for a somewhat paltry $15 million, one-year contract. And, truth be told, Suarez' numbers for the Reds this year gave been closer to the second half of last season, when he hit only .189 with a .682 OPS for the Mariners than the first half, when his OPS in Arizona was .892. Suarez entered the game with a .215 BA and a .636 OPS. But in the first two innings of this game, Suarez looked like the Diamondbacks version, slugging a three-run dinger in the first and a grand slam in the second. We'll forget the two strikeouts that followed and let him bask in the early-game success.

Need to Know

• The game was the first of a six-game road trip that will also take the Mets to Philadelphia. They had won three of their previous four and were 22-18 over their previous 40 games, which is a pace that equates to an 89-win season. Of course, we won't talk about the 31 games that preceded those.

• Got your pencils out? It was roster move Monday, starting with Christian Scott going on the IL with a right hip impingement. He is expected to miss two starts. Daniel Duarte was optioned to AAA Syracuse. Recalled: Jonthan Pintaro and Tobias Myers, who served as the opener in tonight's game.

• Let's keep going: Jorge Polanco was moved to the 60-day IL, which made room for infielder Zack Short, claimed on waivers from the Tigers. You might remember Short's brief 2024 tenure with the Mets, when he was the roster spaceholder as J.D. Martinez ramped up from a late-spring training free agent signing.

• The Reds win broke a streak in which they had lost seven straight games after taking a lead, and a total of 18 on the season. Some leads, however, are just two big to blow. A nine-run lead after two innings falls into that category.

• The Reds also had dropped eight of their previous 10 and 12 of their previous 16.

• This was the Mets' most lopsided loss since 2018, when they lost to the Nationals, 15-0.

  
  

Turning Point

It's difficult, but possible, to come back from a five-run deficit, especially in a bandbox like Great American Ballpark. A 9-0 hole? Only if you can add Jalen Brunson, Karl Anthony Towns, Josh Hart, OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges to the Mets' roster. So we'll opt for the obvious, and call the turning point the Suarez grand slam.

Three Keys

Miserable Myers

When the Mets optioned Tobias Myers to Syracuse two weeks ago, two factors came into play: first, at a time when the Mets had taxed their bullpen and needed fresh arms, Myers was one of the few bullpen members with options; and second, after an impressive start, Myers had been incredibly ineffective, having allowed five runs in his last seven appearances. Manager Carlos Mendoza promised Myers he would be back relatively quickly.

The Mets should have waited longer to call him up.

Myers was awful, lasting only an inning and a third. He gave up four hits, walked three (including one with the bases loaded) and was so ineffective that the Mets had to waste Jonathan Pintaro, recalled along with Myers, instead of Myers turning the ball over to David Peterson after two or three innings. Pintaro had to become the innings eater, especially after he yielded the grand slam to Eugenio Suarez, all of which makes both Myers and Pintaro candidates to head back to Syracuse on the early morning puddle jumper. In Pintaro's case, it's because of the number of pitches he had to throw. Myers? That's another story.

Missed Opportunities

The middle innings of the game became the Mets' version of Groundhog Day.

Reds starter Chase Burns started the game they same way he did his May 26 outing against the Mets, whiffing the side. A Bo Bichette double aside, Burns cruised through the first three innings as his team staked him to a 9-0 lead, striking out six. But then, Burns started struggling, giving up a Bichette double to start the fourth, walking Juan Soto and A.J. Ewing (bookending a Jared Young popout). Bases loaded, one out -- and the Mets couldn't capitalize. Marcus Semien popped out and Bret Baty struck out.

The fifth inning? A carbon copy of the fourth. Bases loaded with one out, and they couldn't push a single run across the plate (although some head-scratching baserunning by M.J. Melendez kept them off the board).

Two innings, bases loaded, less than two outs and nothing to show for it? Not how you climb back from a 9-0 deficit. And it made leaving two men on base in the sixth a mere afterthought. And the seventh? Bases loaded with out and, again, no runs.

Bo Knows

Even in a blowout, we try to find a silver lining to the cloud. And for tonight's game, it was Bo Bichette. Bichette entered the game with a .390 batting average over his previous 10 games, with eight runs, three doubles, one triple, three homers, 12 RBI and a 1.104 OPS . Bichette put up three more hits, two of them doubles, as he continued his hot hitting both in the past two weeks and at Great American Ballpark, where he had a 1.313 OPS in five previous games against the Reds. With Juan Soto coming out of his slump, if Bichette can stay hot until Francisco Lindor returns, the middle of the Mets lineup starts looking promising.