The way the Mets’ offense has been going, four runs — all on solo home runs — qualifies as a breakout.
But Buck Showalter’s crew needed more than a breakout to survive a strong Blue Jays club that buzzed its way to a sweep.
As the Mets’ bats began to wake up, their pitching became the problem in a 6-4 loss to the Blue Jays to complete a disappointing sweep at Citi Field. A sellout crowd of 42,169 watched the Mets (30-30) fall back to .500 on a cloudy Sunday afternoon.
Kodai Senga was wild and Dominic Leone surrendered the go-ahead homer as the Mets seized no momentum from sweeping the Phillies. A six-game road trip begins Tuesday in Atlanta.
The Mets used their power to claw out of a four-run hole, getting a pair of mid-game home runs from Tommy Pham. They tied the game with homers from Pete Alonso and Starling Marte in the sixth inning.
But all the blasts were solo shots, and the good momentum lasted only a few minutes.
In the seventh against Leone, a low-leverage righty arm, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., singled ahead of Brandon Belt, who hammered a slider to dead center to give the Blue Jays a second lead and one they did not blow. The Mets went in order in the eighth and ninth.
The Mets have not been able to gain traction in a season in which a step forward has been followed by a step back.
Senga had been stepping up, excelling both recently (holding a 2.00 ERA in his past three starts entering the game) and locally (entering with a 1.20 ERA in Queens).
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But his first attempt at pitching on normal rest as an MLB pitcher did not go well.
Pitching on four days’ rest for the first time after he typically pitched weekly in Japan, Senga walked five and recorded just eight outs.
In his 2 ²/₃ innings, Senga gave up four runs (three earned) on four hits and struggled to stay in the strike zone. The pitches in the strike zone the Blue Jays hit hard.
Senga dug a hole in the second when a walk (to Matt Chapman) and a couple of rocket hits (a Daulton Varsho single and Whit Merrifield double) plated two.
Senga would not escape the third, though part of the problem involved his defense.
Guerrero blasted a one-out homer to left before Toronto scored with the Mets’ help. Chapman doubled and Francisco Alvarez — who had picked off Guerrero at first base in the first inning — tried to back-pick Chapman, too.
But the throw sailed into shallow left-center, where center fielder Pham jogged (and did not sprint) to retrieve it.
Chapman capitalized, going from third to home and sliding just ahead of an Alvarez tag.
Little mistakes will hurt a team that scored a total of five runs in the series.
