ANAHEIM, Calif. — This dam was due to burst.
After 20¹/₃ consecutive scoreless innings by Mets relievers — an improbable number considering how this season started — Jeurys Familia got devoured in Friday night’s 11th inning.
Hank Conger was drilled by a 98-mph heater from Familia, forcing in the winning run in the Mets’ 5-4 loss to the Angels in front of 42,871 at Angel Stadium of Anaheim.
The Mets went meekly into the night, with Angels relievers retiring the last 12 batters they faced. Daniel Murphy’s single leading off the eighth was the Mets’ final hit of the game.
If the Mets were fatigued, who could blame them? They finished their series in Atlanta with a night game on Thursday and then flew five hours to Southern California, arriving at their hotel about 4 a.m. local time on Friday.
Familia gave the Mets two solid innings in relief before folding in the 11th. Raul Ibanez singled to begin the winning rally. After a wild pitch and ground out moved the winning run to third, Howie Kendrick and J.B. Shuck were intentionally walked to load the bases. Familia then nailed Conger with a 2-2 pitch.
“[Familia] was throwing real well,” catcher Travis d’Arnaud said. “He had great command of his fastball tonight. It was unfortunate the first guy got on, then we had to load up the bases.”
Manager Terry Collins still had Jose Valverde and John Lannan in the bullpen, but opted to use Familia for a third inning of relief. Collins’ rationale was he wanted Valverde for a potential save situation and would need Lannan for possible long relief duty if Valverde were to blow the save.
“Jeurys did a good job tonight,” Collins said. “You’re not asking anybody like that to go out there for three innings. He went out there and did a nice job, we just couldn’t get him any runs.”
Familia said it was difficult readjusting after throwing eight straight intentional balls to load the bases. But he said the extended duty didn’t bother him.
“I just tried to keep going, pound the zone, get a ground ball” he said.
Familia’s final act in the 10th inning was retiring Albert Pujols on a comebacker for the last out with the winning run on second base.
Kyle Farnsworth got a huge out in the eighth, retiring Pujols to end the inning after Mike Trout had walked to load the bases. Gonzalez Germen, Scott Rice and Farnsworth were used in the inning, putting the ball in Familia’s hand for the next two.
Shuck’s two-run homer in the sixth tied the game at 4-4 and all but ended Dillon Gee’s night. The right-hander lasted just 5²/₃ innings in which he allowed four earned runs on six hits with four walks and five strikeouts.
It marked a third straight start in which Gee surrendered runs in his final inning. A day earlier, he had spoken of the need to finish strong, not allowing an opponent back in the game.
But Kendrick walked with one out in the sixth before Shuck hammered a shot into the right-field seats. Gee allowed a single to Erick Aybar later in the inning and was yanked. Carlos Torres walked Kole Calhoun, but then struck out Trout to escape the inning
Josh Satin’s two-run double in the fourth gave the Mets a 4-2 lead. Curtis Granderson hit a squib double to left, snapping an 0-for-14 drought, to put runners on second and third. Satin, in the lineup with left-hander Tyler Skaggs on the mound, followed with a shot to left-center that scored both runs. It was the first hit of the season for Satin, whose at-bats have come primarily as a pinch-hitter.
The Mets had tied the game an inning earlier on d’Arnaud’s first homer of the season, a rocket that cleared the fence in left-center. It couldn’t have come at a better time for the native of nearby Long Beach, who had just one RBI entering the game.
Gee fell into a 2-1 hole in the second, when Chris Iannetta stroked an RBI single following Kendrick’s double with one out.
An inning earlier Trout hit a monstrous solo homer against Gee to make it 1-1. The Mets had fired the first shot with consecutive singles by Eric Young Jr. and Murphy to start the game. David Wright ruined the Mets’ chances of a big inning by hitting into a double play, but a run scored on the grounder.
Jump-starting Granderson, who went 1-for-5 and is hitting .135, remains a priority.
The fact Granderson missed most of last season with the Yankees, getting just 214 at-bats because of injuries, is a factor Collins has considered.
“You’re talking about a guy who didn’t get very many at-bats last year as he’s normally used to,” Collins said. “He came into spring training and we talked about trying to get him extra at-bats, and in the beginning he was up for it.
“And as spring training wears on, you get a little worn down at the end and I said, ‘It’s more important I think to get some at the end,’ but I also know that when it starts to warm up he warms up.”
But Granderson, who missed extended playing time last season because of a broken wrist and finger in separate hit-by-pitch incidents, said he isn’t so sure his scarcity of at-bats in 2013 has any bearing on his performance now.
“ It’s hard for me to say, because I’ve never had that happen to me before,” Granderson said. “But at the same time even if you had a lot of at-bats or didn’t have a lot of at-bats, you’re looking at about six months (over the winter) since your last at-bat. So whether you had a bunch or not, you push it to the past.”