Soft contact and sloppy defense were the undoing of the Los Angeles Dodgers in a 7-3 loss to the New York Mets. The series loss marked a first for the Dodgers since they were swept at Dodger Stadium by the St. Louis Cardinals from Aug. 20-22.
What was evolving into another dominant outing from Hyun-Jin Ryu ultimately came apart. He was perfect through three innings before losing an early bid for history on Ahmed Rosario’s leadoff single in the fourth.
Jeff McNeil followed with a double, and Wilmer Flores lined an RBI infield single off Ryu to give the Mets a 1-0 lead. That should have been it as Ryu collected a strikeout and induced a fly out to shallow left field.
Joc Pederson threw on target to home plate, beating McNeil with the throw with plenty of time to spare, only for Yasmani Grandal to lose control. The sacrifice fly was not only costly as a run scored on that play, but Austin Jackson tacked on a bloop RBI single before Ryu got out of the inning.
He encountered more trouble in the fifth, which began with giving up a double and base hit. Two batters later, Alex Verdugo came up empty on a sliding catch attempt, resulting in an RBI flare single for Rosario.
Flores later dropped an RBI base hit of his own between three Dodgers. The two runs the Mets scored in the inning proved key as the Dodgers had just cut into their deficit.
Like Ryu, Zack Wheeler was perfect through three innings. However he nearly made it through the fourth, only to give up a two-out infield single to Justin Turner. Max Muncy then hit a two-run home run more than halfway up the pavilion in right-center field.
Perhaps buoyed by the Mets answering back in the fifth inning, Wheeler settled back in. He gave up a solo home run to Cody Bellinger in the seventh, but at that point all it did was trim the Mets’ lead to 7-3.
