He is never the culprit expected. If it’s a final dagger from the Mets season, it was Lars Nootbaar who helped with the stabbing.
Nootbaar, a young Cardinals camper who appeared in his 44th career game and not a description of a Snickers, will be remembered in Queens as a robber, taking what could have been a home that modified the game by fleeing Pete Alonso during the 11 of the Mets. 4 defeats against the Cardinals at Citi Field.
There was a lot of frustration in the Mets ’third straight loss, but Alonso’s image, stalled between first and second base and sloping in disbelief, will be lasting from Wednesday night.
There were two runners in the bottom of the seventh in a game the Mets dragged for four when first-baseman, who had already scored a goal, drove a TJ McFarland change to deep right center.
Minutes earlier – and three batters before – Nootbaar was watching from the shelter, but the Cardinals made a double change in which Noorbaar replaced right-back Dylan Carlson during a pitching change. Noorbaar drifted back, had to feel the wall and stood up, his left hand gloved over the orange line that determines the run home and corraled it. He hit the ground and dropped a fist bomb while McFarland did the same.
“Pete was a foot away from home,” lamented Jeff McNeil.
From the shelter, Luis Rojas thought Alonso had had enough.
“The kid made a good play,” the Mets manager said. “He just entered the game and was ready. You also have to prove it. ”
What could have been a one-run game in the seventh happened in the eighth, when the Cardinals scored three times and turned the contest into a laugh.
The Mets season can fall like a series of steps, which is how Wednesday’s game unfolded. Not only did Alonso wonder if his swing altered the game.
In the fifth, the dazzling Javier Baez seemed to have reworked his magic. With two counters and two outings in a game, the Mets fell again by four, attempting a Jon Lester change on the center field wall. What would have been a three-run home run with a few more push-ups died in the glove of Harrison Bader, who hit the wall to make the catch.
In total, the Mets left 10 runners at base and went 1-on-14 with the runners in scoring position, which further frustrated Rojas.
“For me, that was the biggest difference in the game,” Rojas said.
His bats were quiet in large places and the gloves of the outsiders of St. Louis was strong. A Nootbaar sure sounds sweet, but he let the Mets be bitter.