The road trip from hell was over, but the Mets brought home their hellish losing streak.
Carlos Mendoza’s team had a prepared excuse for a 10-game, four-city, 10-day trip that ended with a three-game blitz in Seattle.
On Tuesday, they had no such alibi. Pete Alonso’s fall on his face Bottom of the 6th inning.
The Mets lost the series opener 9-4 to the A’s, who are last in the AL West, in front of 31,923 fans at Citi Field, and then lost their fourth straight game 31-5, as their hitting was lackluster and their pitching collapsed.
Paul Blackburn took over from a depleted starting pitching staff and continued the trend.
The pitcher, making just his third start for the Mets, was booed in his home debut against the team that traded him for in late July.
After being impressive in his first two games with the Mets, Blackburn gave up seven runs (six earned) in four innings and dug himself a deep hole that he couldn’t get out of.
There should be no qualms about the effort level of the Mets (61-58).
The team was trailing by six runs at the end of the fourth inning, but their hopes were revived in the fifth inning with a two-run RBI single by Jesse Winker and a two-run single by Alonso.
The team put runners on base to tie the game in the third inning, but relief pitcher Austin Adams (who signed with Oakland during spring training) pitched a dominant performance, striking out Jeff McNeil, Jose Iglesias and Francisco Alvarez.
It seemed to mean even more to him when Adams, animated and dramatic, raised his arms and roared as he walked off the mound after Alvarez struck out.
The Mets were still struggling in the sixth inning and were slowly being hurt, but Alonso made a great save to make up for it.
Miguel Andujar’s grounder along the first base line beat him, but Alonso angled in, reached behind him and made a nice swat down of the ball.
Alonso lost his balance, shifted his weight from his stomach to his face, scraped his nose on the ground, and, bloody, got to his feet and tried to throw home, but it was too late to stop the Athletics from scoring again.
The Athletics scored two runs in the inning, thanks to a rare strikeout by Jose Butt (who scored two runs with runners on seven in the second inning).
There should likely be some concern about the Mets’ starting rotation and the team’s struggling offensive line.
During that four-game slump, Jose Quintana, Sean Manaea, Luis Severino and now Blackburn have allowed 19 runs in 18 innings.
Blackburn’s night started poorly and didn’t get much better after that.
He loaded the bases in the first inning and watched as Seth Brown smashed a double to right-center field to load the bases and score three runs.
The Mets managed to get one run back in the second inning with an RBI hit by Iglesias, but gave up four runs in the third inning and were unable to close the gap.
One run looked like a double play, but third baseman Iglesias fumbled a grounder that bounced into left field, and then Shea Langeliers hit a three-run homer for a 7-1 lead.
Then, to add insult to injury, J.D. Martinez was hit by a 99.6 mph fastball in his only at-bat in the top of the second inning and left the game with a bruised left elbow.
Mark Vientos took over for Martinez and had one of nine hits on a night in which the Mets scored more runs than they scored.
They were 4-for-16 with runners in scoring position and left 10 runners on base.
After an explosive attack in the top of the fifth, they were unable to score a run as Oakland’s talented relief pitchers limited them to just two hits in five innings.
