The Mets have mastered the art of the gut-punch.
It is just not that they continue to find ways to lose games. It is how they lose games that makes the team particularly frustrating for the fan base.
The Mets brought another lead into the ninth inning and flushed it on Sunday. Jake Diekman served up a two-run homer to Ketel Marte that proved to be the game-winner in a 5-4 loss to the Diamondbacks in front of 31,059 at Citi Field.
The Mets (24-35) have lost momentum from Thursday’s players-only meeting, following a pair of wins by dropping two in a row for a series split. They haven’t won a series since May 6-7 in St. Louis.
The Mets entered the ninth inning with plenty of good feeling from a rolling bullpen. Dedniel Núñez, Danny Young, Reed Garrett and Adam Ottavino had come up big in relief of Jose Quintana (four innings, three runs) and combined for four scoreless innings with nine strikeouts.
But in a bullpen without Edwin Diaz, Diekman arrived for the ninth and quickly showed he had nothing. Gabriel Moreno doubled before Marte’s deep homer to center became the latest low blow for the Mets.
Until the fateful ninth, it had seemed that the Mets’ big third inning was all they would need.
They entered the third inning down, 3-0, and went to work.
Tyrone Taylor’s double and Luis Torrens’ walk began a rally that got going with two outs. Pete Alonso ground a single for the first run. Brandon Nimmo and J.D. Martinez then launched back-to-back triples — for a team that entered play with two triples all season — to score three more. Nimmo reached third with the help of a fruitless dive by right fielder Randal Grichuk, while Martinez’s triple bounded off the center-field wall.
The Mets were held down for the ensuing six innings, which did not matter until Diekman came in.
