Mets lose to Brewers after Drew Smith blows lead in first game back from sticky stuff suspension – The Denver Post

Asking the Mets bullpen to protect a one-run lead for four innings is a tall ask these days. It proved to be Mount Everest levels of steep Monday night at Citi Field in a 2-1 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers.

The Mets might have returned home after a 2-4 road trip through Houston and Philadelphia, but the same problems continue to plague them.

Justin Verlander threw five scoreless, but inefficient innings and exited the game with the Mets up 1-0. Brewers right-hander Colin Rea was masterful, no-hitting the Mets (35-43) through four innings. But thanks to the speedy Starling Marte and his base-running abilities, the Mets were able to score in the fourth inning.

But Drew Smith, in his first game back after serving a 10-game suspension for sticky stuff, couldn’t hold the lead. He gave up a two-run homer to rookie Joey Weimer in the sixth to hand the Brewers (41-37) the lead.

So it goes for the Mets, who haven’t been able to figure out their pitching issues all season, but the bullpen issues have been particularly egregious in June. The Mets are 6-16 this month and are currently in fourth place in the NL East. The bullpen has been overworked all season as a result of the starting staff being unable to get deep into games, and some of the relief personnel probably punched above their weight before regressing to the mean.

Smith (3-3) might be one of those pitchers. This wasn’t his first blown lead of the season. Though the 29-year-old right-hander has always been a bit homer-prone, Smith seems to be one of a few young pitchers that have regressed this season. He was in the midst of a down season before he sat for 10 games for his hand being too sticky and he now has a 4.74 ERA.

Smith rejoined the team in Philadelphia after spending much of the last two weeks in Port St. Lucie throwing in the Florida Complex League to stay sharp during the break. But he wasn’t sharp enough against Wiemer. Smith couldn’t elevate his fastball and left it right over the plate on a 2-2 count.

Verlander faced traffic on the basepaths early on and used 100 pitches in five innings. The Mets haven’t pushed their pitchers too far past 100 very often and given Verlander’s age (40) and early-season injury (teres major strain), they have taken the conservative route with their $43 million ace. It was a good, gutsy performance, but not necessarily a great one.

Meanwhile, Rea (4-4) pitched around that fourth-inning run. He went 6 1/3 innings and struck out three. One day after refusing to use the best relievers in the bullpen, the Mets used all three high-leverage arms to keep the team in the game. The effort went to waste as the Mets went quiet against Milwaukee’s bullpen and Devin Williams converted the save (14) with a six-pitch ninth inning.

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