The Mets offense had no answer for Clayton Kershaw as they mustered just four hits in their 5-0 loss to the Dodgers on Tuesday night.
Here are the takeaways…
– The Mets had an odd start, with Brandon Nimmo ending up on third base after Jayson Heyward misplayed a line drive and was hit with a three-base error. However, the Mets could not push the run across with Starling Marte, Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso all striking out to Clayton Kershaw.
Kershaw was the story of this game as he dominated the Mets lineup. Lindor would get the first Mets hit in the fourth inning, a seeing-eye single, and not another base-runner until the seventh. Mark Canha fought off a pitch to get a single after a 13-pitch at-bat. Jeff McNeil followed with a single. Kershaw would get Tommy Pham to strike out to get out of the inning.
Kershaw picked up his 200th career win after seven scoreless innings. In 17 regular season starts, Kershaw owns a career 2.03 ERA against the Mets.
– Tylor Megill, coming off three straight good games, did not have it in the first inning. After a single from Freddie Freeman, J.D. Martinez took the 27-year-old deep to give the Dodgers an early 2-0 lead. It took him 27 pitches to get out of the first, but he rolled until Martinez came up in the third. The DH took a fastball the opposite way to increase LA’s lead to 3-0.
Megill struggled for most of his outing, but he got out of big trouble in the fifth inning. With the bases loaded and one out, he got David Peralta to strike out and Luke Williams to fly out to get through five innings.
Megill’s final line: 5 IP (96 pitches), seven hits, three runs, four walks, four strikeouts.
– In relief of Megill, the bullpen did a decent job. Denyi Reyes pitched 1.1 scoreless innings while Jeff Bridham made his Mets debut with 0.2 clean innings. John Curtiss, however, gave up two runs in the eighth inning to put the Dodger lead to 5-0. Martinez drove in the team’s fifth run on a single, his fourth of the game.
– The Mets could only muster four hits. McNeil, Lindor, Canha and Daniel Vogelbach (pinch-hitting for Eduardo Escobar) were the beneficiaries of those hits. Brett Baty did pinch-hit with a man on first in the eighth inning but hit a bullet to the second baseman who played it perfectly and doubled up Francisco Alvarez — pinch-running for Vogelbach — to end any threat the Mets would muster in the later innings.
Highlights
What’s next
The Mets wrap up their three-game series against the Dodgers on Wednesday afternoon. First pitch is scheduled for 3:10 p.m.
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