On Saturday, the Mets lost to Detroit with their best pitcher, Matt Harvey, on the mound. On Sunday, they fell with their hottest starter, Dillon Gee, on the hill. And after the 11-3 beating at the hands of the Tigers was over — the imploding bullpen turning a nailbiter into a rout in the ninth inning — Detroit had handed the Mets a three-game sweep before 32,084 at Citi Field.
Gee (9-9) had been spectacular for the past three months, and was solid Sunday. He scattered 10 hits and allowed four earned runs on a pair of two-run home runs, by Miguel Cabrera in the first and Andy Dirks in the sixth. The latter turned a one-run Mets lead into a 4-3 deficit, but it was reliever LaTroy Hawkins’ five-run debacle in one-third of an inning that turned it into a humiliation.
Harvey coughed up a career-high 13 hits on Saturday to the AL Central-leading Tigers, but it was the Mets getting shut out by Max Scherzer and the Detroit bullpen that cost them in that game. On Sunday, they mustered four hits and three runs — one run more run than they had scored in their prior three games combined, but nowhere near good enough.
Coming into the day, Gee had the fourth-best ERA in baseball since May 30 (2.45), and he had been even better since July 14 (1.47). But in Gee’s first career start against the Tigers, Cabrera (who went 3-for-4 with a walk) got to him early, sending a 2-0 pitch sailing into the second deck in left field and bouncing down a hallway for a 2-0 lead.
The Mets cut the lead in half in the third and erased it altogether in the fourth. Daniel Murphy’s soft, broken-bat RBI single to center plated Omar Quintanilla in the third, and the next inning rookie catcher Travis d’Arnaud hit a two-run homer to left, his first in the major leagues.
The crowd stood and cheered for d’Arnaud until he popped his head out of the dugout for a curtain call. But the lead was short-lived. In the sixth, Gee hung an 81-mph slider that Dirks tagged out to right for a two-run homer.
Lucas Duda, who was called up Saturday, walked in the eighth, moved to second in Eric Young Jr.’s sacrifice bunt and took third on a wild pitch to Marlon Byrd. But Byrd struck out on reliever Bruce Rondon’s 89-mph slider to end the threat.
The Tigers proceeded to blow it open with seven runs in the ninth.
Victor Martinez stroked an RBI single and Dirks drew a bases-loaded walk from Hawkins that got the right-handed reliever pulled and elicited boos from the fans, but those jeers were nothing compared to the venom to come. Omar Infante greeted reliever Scott Atchison with an RBI single, and a wild pitch with Ramon Santiago at bat plated Bryan Holaday.
Singles to right by Santiago and Matt Tuiasosopo, followed by Austin Jackson’s sacrifice fly, made it 11-3.
Tigers starter Rick Porcello got the win to improve to 10-7.