NEW YORK — The first round of boos was directed toward Jose Altuve, a face of the 2017 Astros, the most reviled team in recent baseball history, when he stepped to the plate to begin the game Tuesday night.
But the rest of the rounds were reserved for the Mets.
Their 9-1 pummeling by the Astros featured vocal less-than-rave reviews from the Citi Field crowd for the likes of Chasen Shreve, who gave up two-run homers to two of his four batters, and James McCann, who grounded into an inning-ending double play when the score was still sort of close.
Escaping unscathed, at least as measured by decibel level, was Carlos Carrasco, the primary culprit in the blowout.
Houston crushed him for six runs and six hits in 4 1/3 innings, the third time in four starts he failed to finish the fifth. He walked three and struck out four.
Over his past two starts — both against the Astros, both messes — Carrasco’s ERA has shot up from 3.96 to 4.85.
Last week, when Carrasco attributed the struggles to back tightness that forced him out of the game in the third inning, Houston scored four runs before making an out. This week, when Carrasco didn’t appear to be in any discomfort, they scored four runs before making a second out.
The red flags almost immediately. Altuve fell behind 0-and-2 but worked a seven-pitch walk. Back-to-back singles from Yordan Alvarez and Alex Bregman plated a run and brought up Kyle Tucker, who walloped a three-run home run to right-centerfield.
Houston (46-27) added a run in the fourth when Tucker singled, stole second and scored Jake Meyers’ single to center.
The game fully got away from the Mets (47-28) when Shreve, a lefthander, entered in the fifth. His first batter, the lefthanded-hitting Alvarez, crushed a two-run shot to center. A few batters later, Yuli Gurriel did the same. Manager Buck Showalter started his walk to the mound to pull Shreve before Gurriel had even rounded third base.
Even more so than Carrasco, Shreve has struggled immensely lately. He had a 1.54 ERA in his first 10 appearances. Since then, he has a 10.68 ERA in 14 games.
The Mets’ hitters, meanwhile, had a predictably difficult time against Framber Valdez, a 28-year-old lefthander who has emerged as a top starter for the Astros. He shut them out for eight innings, scattering six hits and two walks. That lowered his ERA to 2.65.
Their best chance to make it a contest came in the fourth, when they put their first two batters on base (Starling Marte double, Francisco Lindor walk) and loaded the bases with two outs. But Mark Canha grounded out to end the threat. The key play in that sequence: Altuve’s diving stop of Pete Alonso’s grounder, turning a potential RBI single — and the would-be third consecutive hit to open the inning — into an out.
The Astros are in the middle of a nine-game stretch against New York teams: two against the Mets in Houston, four against the Yankees in the Bronx, two against the Mets in Queens and one more against the Yankees in Houston, a makeup game on Thursday.
Because of that repetitive schedule, the Astros rejiggered their rotation, which was unfortunate for the Mets. Instead of facing Luis Garcia and Valdez, they drew Valdez and Justin Verlander, who will get the ball in the finale Wednesday afternoon. Verlander has a 2.22 ERA after barely pitching the previous two seasons due to Tommy John surgery.
Houston made that switch because they didn’t want their starters to face the same team for the second time in a row. So Garcia, who pitched against the Mets last week, gets the Yankees on Thursday. Verlander, who already saw the Yankees, gets moved up a day for the Mets.
