MILWAUKEE — The natives might be a tad restless as the Mets prepare for their Friday home opener.
A nightmarish series against the Brewers — one which concluded with Garrett Mitchell circling the bases Wednesday after he hit a walk-off homer against Adam Ottavino in the ninth inning — wasn’t the lead-in the Mets would have preferred for their 2023 Citi Field debut.
And yet here they are, sputtering after a 7-6 loss at American Family Field that gave the Brewers a three-game sweep.
The home opener, originally scheduled for Thursday, has been rescheduled for Friday because of inclement weather in the forecast.
“I believe in the team,” Francisco Lindor said. “I believe in every single guy that we have, I think we have what it takes. I think we have the ‘it’ factor. They outplayed us, flat-out simple.”
After a two-day hiatus the Mets’ lineup finally showed up, but it wasn’t enough to cover for the cracks in the starting pitching and bullpen.
David Peterson was shaky to say the least and Drew Smith and Ottavino each allowed a run in relief.
David Robertson pitched a perfect eighth — manager Buck Showalter liked the matchups against left-handers in the inning — before Ottavino entered and threw a cutter on his seventh pitch that Mitchell lofted into the right-field seats.
Showalter said he didn’t use Robertson to face the lefty Mitchell to start the ninth because he doesn’t want to overextend his relievers this early in the season. That left Ottavino as the next in line.
“You are always going to be frustrated — nobody likes to lose whether it’s April or August or whatever,” Ottavino said. “But overall it’s still early obviously and we have got a lot of baseball to play and we have got to start putting our best foot forward here.”
Mitchell’s homer was the Brewers’ ninth in the series. The Mets finished with two, both from Pete Alonso on Wednesday. The Brewers’ sweep left the Mets 3-4 after their initial road trip.
“We are going home to friendly faces, we hope,” Showalter said. “We have been gone for what, almost two months? I think everybody is looking forward to getting back and seeing some people.”
Peterson took a 6-4 lead into the fifth, but was removed after walking Christian Yelich to begin the inning. Luke Voit singled against Drew Smith and both runners scored on Jesse Winker’s loud double, tying the game.
Peterson walked five and allowed five hits over the four innings with five earned runs allowed and five strikeouts.
The left-hander was in trouble for most of the afternoon, with walks as the main culprit.
“Just not enough strikes,” Peterson said. “I have got to pound the zone more and then the ones that they hit were missed spots. I have got to clean those up and give the team a better chance to win next time.”
In the second he walked Brian Anderson to start a four-run Brewers rally.
Winker’s double knocked in a run before Joey Wiemer’s first major league homer, a three-run blast, placed the Mets in a 4-1 hole.
The Mets had snapped a 20-inning scoreless streak in the first, when Lindor delivered an RBI double after Starling Marte was hit by a pitch and stole second.
Alonso’s first homer of the day, a two-run shot, tied it 4-4 in the third. To that point, the Brewers had out-homered the Mets 8-0 in the series.
Marte doubled to start the rally and Lindor’s RBI single pulled the Mets within 4-2 before Alonso smashed a 95 mph fastball, clearing the fence in right-center against Corbin Burnes.
In the sixth, Lindor doubled for his third hit of the game before Alonso homered to left-center against Burnes.
The multi-homer game was the 15th of Alonso’s career.
“There’s a lot of things we can do better, it’s just trying to find little advantages here and there,” Alonso said. “I guess it just comes down to execution on both sides of the ball. Clearly we didn’t play the way we wanted to, especially here in Milwaukee. We had a great series in Miami … when you don’t execute you get exposed.”
