Mets' injuries and missteps take a toll

Before their fifth defeat in the past six games — an 8-7 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers in which the bullpen stumbled again — the Mets announced that struggling relief pitcher A.J. Ramos, after two straight awful outings this weekend, had flown back to New York to undergo tests for tightness in his throwing shoulder.

During the game, the Mets watched starter Zack Wheeler more or less pitch solidly — four runs over six innings — save for the one frame in which he stumbled, a common theme for him this season. And overall the runs he gave up were not completely his fault: Two defensive miscues contributed to his missteps.

One of the players who hurt Wheeler’s cause was Wilmer Flores, who was filling in for the injured Todd Frazier at third base. His wild throw to first base in the third inning put runners on the corners with no one out. After the error, Wheeler coughed up a long, game-tying, three-run blast to Brewers slugger Jesus Aguilar.

After that inning was over, Flores, who has been struggling in the field recently, left the game because of lower back soreness.

With Flores also heading back to New York to be examined, the Mets will need a position player to replace him on the roster while simultaneously having to beef up the pitching staff for Monday’s doubleheader against the Braves in Atlanta.

“It’s kind of rough when you finally start scoring some runs and you give up runs,” the Mets’ rookie manager Mickey Callaway said after the team’s latest loss, which leaves the Mets just one game above .500. “But that’s how it’s been and we need to play better all around.”

The Mets’ defense also contributed to the first run Wheeler allowed. With two runners on base after singles in the first inning, outfielders Michael Conforto and Jay Bruce did not communicate well on a fly ball by Aguilar, and a run scored after the ball fell between them.

The Mets eventually took a 6-4 lead thanks to a run-scoring single by Bruce and a home run by Asdrubal Cabrera. At that point, Callaway’s pitching choices and the bullpen’s current struggles came to a head in the bottom of the seventh.

For the second time in three games, Robert Gsellman entered a critical juncture of the game for the Mets, got two outs but allowed at least one base runner. And in both instances, Callaway called for struggling left-handed reliever Jerry Blevins to replace Gsellman against a left-handed batter. It did not work either time.

Reliable the past two seasons, Blevins has a 5.59 earned run average in 2018. Worse, he has struggled in his primary role, with left-handers batting .269 against him going into Sunday’s game.

This time, Blevins replaced Gsellman with two runners on, two out and the Mets still up by two runs. Blevins’ job was to get out Travis Shaw, a dangerous left-handed batter who nevertheless had just a .184 average against left-handed pitching. Shaw was 0 for 2 against Blevins in his career and 3 for 7 against Gsellman, so the switch by Callaway made sense even if the sample sizes were small.

“You have to lean toward the numbers a little bit,” Callaway said.

But the switch did not work, although luck was part of it, too. Shaw poked the ball into shallow left field for a run-scoring single. On came another reliever, Paul Sewald, who surrendered a flare to right field by Domingo Santana that scored two more runs and put the Brewers ahead, 7-6. Another hit off Sewald made it 8-6 and gave the Brewers the cushion they eventually needed to win.

“I don’t think I’ve been this angry with baseball in a while,” Blevins said afterward.

Blevins said he has felt “great” on the mound of late, but it did not show on Sunday, which had been an opportunity to reward Callaway’s faith in him. Blevins has been asked to face just one batter 13 times this season and he has failed to get an out on six of those occasions.

“I can’t say frustration anymore,” he said. “Anger right now.”

As for Ramos, he dealt with some shoulder tightness in spring training and the issue did not resurface until Saturday, when he informed the team. He, and Flores, join an injury list that also includes Yoenis Cespedes (hip), Anthony Swarzak (oblique) and Frazier (hamstring). And meanwhile, the Mets who are playing are hardly thriving.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.