PHOENIX — Nothing quite says “mediocre” like the Mets’ starting rotation.
Dillon Gee and Mike Pelfrey are ho-hum starters the Mets will have to make decisions on for next season’s rotation, and Exhibit C was on display yesterday against the Diamondbacks. With Chris Capuano, every start seems the same.
Following a familiar pattern, the lefty started strong and then fizzled in the middle innings, sending the Mets to their fifth straight loss, a 5-3 verdict at Chase Field.
Capuano, who signed an incentive-laden one-year deal with the Mets last winter, seems like a good bet to receive a contract offer from the team this offseason based on his surprising durability in 2011, but there are questions that need to be answered beforehand.
First and foremost, the Mets need to find a solution to the veteran’s consistent middle-inning blues. Capuano (9-11) yesterday retired the first six batters he faced, survived a rocky third and then began unraveling in the fourth. He finished with four earned runs allowed over six innings.
“I’m just making some mistakes in crucial situations,” said Capuano, who has allowed at least four earned runs in five of his last six starts. “With two outs and runners in scoring position I really need to bear down and make a good pitch. I’m just kind of hanging a pitch here and there. I’m close, but I’ve got to do better than that.”
Ryota Igarashi put the icing on the Diamondbacks’ three-game sweep with a horrid eighth inning in which he put all four batters he faced on base. Henry Blanco walked with the bases loaded to give Arizona an insurance run before Tim Byrdak and Pedro Beato entered to keep the game from turning ugly.
“I’m trying to work on throwing a better curveball,” Igarashi said. “The adjustments I made obviously weren’t good adjustments.”
The Mets (58-62) are four games below .500 for the first time since June 4, and open a three-game series in San Diego tonight just trying to barely stay afloat in third place in the National League East.
In a strange scene, Arizona starting pitcher Jason Marquis fell to the ground after drilling Josh Thole with a pitch in the fourth. Thole and Marquis were both on the ground simultaneously, and the latter was later diagnosed with a fractured right fibula — the result of a shot he took off the leg from Angel Pagan an inning earlier.
Blanco’s RBI double in the sixth tilted the game back in the Diamondbacks’ favor after they had tied the game 3-3 an inning earlier. Paul Goldschmidt doubled with two outs in the sixth and scored on Blanco’s ensuing double to give Arizona the lead.
In the fifth, Capuano got two fast outs before Justin Upton unloaded into the left-field seats to tie the game. The homer was Upton’s 25th of the season and gave him 75 RBIs.
“It’s just like [Capuano] makes good pitches, and then when he makes a mistake he gets hit,” Mets manager Terry Collins said. “He had made good pitches to Upton the whole game and was going to come in on him and left it right down the middle.”
The Mets had grabbed a 3-2 lead in the top of the inning against Zach Duke. Justin Turner delivered an RBI double after Pagan’s leadoff single and scored on Lucas Duda’s RBI dribbler through the middle.
Duda’s homer leading off the fourth had given the Mets a 1-0 lead, but the D’backs roughed up Capuano in the bottom of the inning. Goldschmidt’s RBI double tied the game before Capuano unleashed a wild pitch
that allowed Ryan Roberts
to score from third.