In a game of inches, Zach Lutz’s seventh-inning single kicked up chalk down the first base line and kept the Mets from being no-hit by Gio Gonzalez. They know they were lucky to avoid that ignominy, but the five homers surrendered and the 9-0 loss to Washington suffered Monday night were plenty embarrassing enough.
“Yes, absolutely [we’re lucky]. We hit one ball good. One ball good,’’ repeated Terry Collins, who saw his own starter Carlos Torres implode and take the Mets with him. “One ball good. [Juan] Lagares’ line drive to shortstop was the only ball we hit good. We feel very fortunate.
“We didn’t pitch, gave up all those home runs, and have Gio on the mound pitching as well as he did and [you can’t] expect to have very good games. Fortunately we put a ball in play where nobody was at, so we can at least go home knowing we didn’t get no hit.’’
That’s how low the bar has been set, as the Mets lost for the sixth time in eight games, and the seventh in their last nine at home. They haven’t been no-hit since the Astros’ Darryl Kile on Sept. 8, 1993, but they didn’t muster a hit against Gonzalez (10-6) until Lutz’s single right on the line lead off the seventh.
Lutz, who flailed and got the ball off the end of the bat, readily admits how fortunate their only hit was.
“I hit it off the end of the bat a little bit, and I went down the line. Some good luck right there,’’ Lutz said. “Yeah, the ball that I hit was off the end of the bat, and it was just some luck right there.’’
The Mets hadn’t been on the receiving end of a one-hit shutout since Yankees pitchers A.J. Burnett, Brian Bruney and David Robertson combined to do it on June 27, 2009, at the Stadium. Gonzalez (two walks, eight strikeouts) is the first starting pitcher to complete the feat against the Mets since Dontrelle Willis on June 16, 2003.
“Gio was just dominating the whole night. He had everything working,’’ Lutz said. “It’s tough when he’s out there dominating and you look up at the scoreboard and we’re down nine runs. What can you do?”
On Monday night, nothing. They could have run across the street and used one of Rafael Nadal’s rackets and not hit Gonzalez. Torres (3-4) was off from the first inning and it just got worse from there.
Torres saw leadoff hitter Denard Span line his 2-2 cutter into the bullpen and watched Ryan Zimmerman lift another 89 mph cutter out to left field. Seven pitches, two longballs and one horrible tone set.
In the third, Torres allowed a single to Span and — after getting ahead of Zimmerman 0-2 — threw four straight balls to issue a walk that came back to haunt him one pitch later, a fastball at the letters that Jayson Werth crushed for a three-run homer.
After Tyler Moore parked a solo shot in the black in dead center, Collins had seen enough, mercifully pulling Torres (five hits, six runs, four homers) after four ineffective innings.
“They hit those mistakes I left up. They were up and hit it in that gap and everything in that gap was flying,’’ said Torres, who has allowed 14 earned runs in seven innings against Washington, but only a dozen in 59 ¹/₃ innings against everybody else. “I’ve given up 14 runs up to that one team. Bad approach, I guess.’’