Mets 1-hit by Julio Urias, Dodgers, drop first game out of All-Star break – The Denver Post

The Mets promised better times ahead, but Friday night at Citi Field, the second-half Mets looked a lot like the first-half Mets.

The Los Angeles Dodgers took the first game of a three-game series with a 6-0 win. Justin Verlander went only five innings. Five pitchers combined to walk nine hitters and the Mets’ bats went quiet against left-hander Julio Urias.

Urias blanked the Mets (42-48) through six innings. Brandon Nimmo was the only hitter to actually get a hit off of Urias, and it came in the first inning. The Mets’ leadoff man took a 1-2 slurve and hit it off the top of the right-center field fence. It was initially ruled a home run, but after an umpire review, it was changed to a ground-rule double. The ball had failed to clear the fence and it bounced back toward the field, into the glove of right fielder Jason Heyward. Pete Alonso walked with two outs to put two on, but Urias retired Starling Marte to end the threat.

Urias (7-5) struck out six in one of his best performances of the season.

The Dodgers (52-38) scored three in the fifth before taking runs off relievers David Peterson and Dominic Leone in the sixth and the eighth.

Verlander, coming off of a shaky performance against the San Diego Padres last weekend, walked the bases loaded with one out in the fifth. Mookie Bets then lined one right to Canha in left field. The outfielder slid to make the catch and the ball bounced off his glove.

Freddie Freeman, who dueled Jeff McNeil for the NL batting title right down to his last at-bat last season, then doubled to score two and put Los Angeles up 3-0.

That inning was a microcosm of the Mets’ 2023 season. A struggling ace failing to get the big out, a defensive miscue and a reminder of better times when Mets hitters could do no wrong.

Verlander took his fifth loss of the season (3-5), allowing three earned runs on only two hits and striking out six. He walked six, which forced him to throw 104 pitches over only five innings.

Peterson, pitching in relief for the first time this season, gave up one in the sixth. J.D. Martinez hit his 23rd home run of the season in the eighth. Drew Smith gave up one in the ninth before getting out of a bases-loaded jam.

The Mets were a combined 1-for-27 with a walk. With the All-Star break now in the rearview mirror, the Mets are running out of time to make a run.

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