QUEENS — The Mets’ comeback efforts fell just short after a night of missed chances and misfires as top prospect and catcher Francisco Alvarez was struck out by star closer Josh Hader with the tying runs in scoring position to end the game and seal a San Diego Padres 4-2 victory.
“He’s got good pitches,” Alvarez said of the veteran closer, who got the best of him in a high-leverage situation that could be deemed emotional for any ballplayer, especially one looking to prove himself. “I don’t think it’s that difficult [to try and do too much], I just have to wait for my pitches. I was looking for a fastball.”
Down three in the ninth inning after Xander Bogaerts’ moonshot off reliever Dennis Santana, Tommy Pham’s RBI single with one out in the bottom of the frame pulled the Mets within two before a fielder’s choice groundout by pinch-hitter Tomas Nido put the tying runs in scoring position for Alvarez, making just his second start this season.
“It’s tough on everybody, not just him,” Mets manager Buck Showalter said of Alvarez’s chance against Hader. “He’s not picking on him. You certainly don’t have to worry about the want to.”
It was the theme of the night as the meager performance wasted David Peterson’s best start of the season as the southpaw went a season-high 5.2 innings against a top-heavy Padres lineup and allowed just those two runs on six hits with two walks and six strikeouts.
“Pete was the key to us being in that game,” Showalter said of his starter. “He really pitched well, attacked. It was good to see him get after it tonight.”
But his support system sagged all night, first missing out on prime early chances to run up the score on Padres starter Ryan Weathers before coming up empty in the final stanzas.
“We needed five runs tonight and we weren’t able to get them,” Showalter said. “There were some at-bats that fell to people other than Francisco Alvarez. So it’s a real tribute to their pitching.”
It was Manny Machado’s two-run fifth-inning double that preceded Bogaerts’ bomb to put the Padres in the driver’s seat and hold off a Mets team that knocked on the door for most of the night.
Down by a run in the bottom of the eighth inning, the Mets (6-6) put runners on first and second with one out, but a Starling Marte fielder’s choice and a Francisco Lindor strikeout ended the threat and their hopes as Bogaerts put the game out of reach.
Granted, they wouldn’t have needed late-game-heroic attempts had they converted on their most prime opportunity in the first inning.
New York opened the game by loading the bases with no outs after Weathers walked a pair and yielded an infield single to Marte, increasing the right fielder’s hit streak to six games.
But Pete Alonso, after battling back from an 0-2 count to run it full, swung at a changeup in the dirt that would have ball four and brought in a run. Mark Canha followed by looping a grounder to second resulting in an inning-ending double play.
“A good pitcher made some good pitches,” Showalter said of Weathers’ escape. “We knew he was going to be a challenge like the guy tomorrow and the guy yesterday.”
Peterson escaped a jam of his own in the top half of the second after a pair of singles put runners at first and third with one out. But he coaxed an inning-ending double play from Trent Grisham to get out of it.
“The goal every time is to go out there and attack the zone and get ahead of hitters,” Peterson said. “Just learning from my last [start] and trying to improve on it.”
After the southpaw struck out the side in the top of the fourth, Canha put the Mets on the board in the bottom of the frame when he drove in Francisco Lindor with a sacrifice fly to right, though the inning could have been larger. Lindor’s lead-off single was followed by an Alonso single to move to third, but the latter was picked off at first during Canha’s at-bat.
The Padres answered right back in the top of the fifth to provide another mid-inning bobble for Peterson, who had not made it past the fifth inning in his previous two starts this season. Needing just one strike to get out of a jam with runners on second and third, Peterson hung a slider — the third straight of that sequence — that Machado ripped down the left-field line to score a pair, giving San Diego its first runs and lead of the series.
Peterson would pitch into the sixth inning for the first time this season but was pulled with two outs in the fifth after a Hae-Song Kim single.
Bogaerts put the finishing touches on the Mets in the top of the ninth when he bombed a two-run home run off Santana into the second deck of the left-field stands for his fourth of the season.
