Tuesday’s game between the Mets and Royals will be one to forget if you’re in New York’s bullpen.
Before the Mets’ rollercoaster 16-12 loss, they had never lost a home game when scoring 11 or more runs. Their 12 runs scored is also tied for the franchise record for the most runs scored in a loss, period.
And those marks fell on the Mets bullpen.
After two straight games in Atlanta that required a lot of pitchers, interim manager Andy Green was short on the pitching side Tuesday. It didn’t help that he had to deploy a bullpen game in their series-opener with Kansas City. Despite that, the Mets pushed on.
Cionel Perez was the opener with Kodai Senga allowing four runs in his three innings of work. The Mets’ offense blitzed the Royals’ pitching staff and overcame Senga’s performance, grabbing a 9-4 lead heading into the fifth inning. That’s when Austin Warren took the mound and allowed five earned runs on four hits and one walk without recording an out.
“It was a tough day for us. No other way around it,” Green said of the pitching staff after the loss. “Perez got us off to a good start. [AJ] Minter had a really good inning in there. [Huascar Brazoban] came in and did some decent stuff. Everything else just was a tough day. Austin Warren’s been somebody we’ve relied on all year long; he’s been very very good for us. It wasn’t his day today.”
Green explained that they hoped Warren would pitch a few innings, but since he didn’t they had to use recently-acquired RHP Matt Seelinger in the seventh with the score tied at 9-9. Seelinger, a 31-year career minor leaguer, was making his major league debut and allowed seven runs in the frame, essentially putting the game out of reach.
“As a group, have a ton of confidence in Austin Warren. He had a night that was really tough. We looked at it pretty confidently, he would give us a couple of innings tonight. It didn’t turn into that,” Green said. “It was at that point we knew we had to put Seellinger in a tough debut spot you prefer not to. We believe in Austin, we’ll continue to believe in him. He’s been great for us all year. That’s where we tripped up a little bit. And that happens.”
“We were light today, I knew I needed to cover some innings,” Warren said of his performance. “Doesn’t change the way I go about my business. Just didn’t work out. Bad outing.”
Warren has been great for the Mets this season, but his last two outings have been subpar. On July 4 against the Braves, he allowed four runs in two innings of work. And after giving up five on Tuesday, Warren has now allowed nine runs in the last two times on the mound (2.0+IP), which equals what he allowed the entire season leading up to that (33.0 IP). Warren chalks it up to missing his spots, but doesn’t want to make excuses, just find a way to get the job done.
With the Mets playing five days in a row before the All-Star break, New York needs Warren and the rest of the pitching staff to pick up the slack or more games like Tuesday will happen.
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