CHICAGO — Suddenly missing for the Mets on Tuesday night were the keys to their season-high-tying five-game win streak: timely hitting and strong starting pitching. And so that win streak ended.
When they lost to the Cubs, 7-2, they didn’t have to wonder why. Tylor Megill allowed six runs (four earned) and six hits in 3 2/3 innings. The lineup went 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position, wasting a series of prime scoring chances.
The Mets (25-24) failed to capitalize on near-rallies early and often.
Brandon Nimmo led off the game with a double, and the Mets ended up with two on with two out. But Mark Vientos struck out.
In the sixth, they put their first three runners on base — a Nimmo ground-ball single, an Eduardo Escobar bloop single and a Francisco Lindor walk. That inspired Cubs manager David Ross to yank lefthanded starter Drew Smyly. But the Mets managed just a lone run against rookie righthanded reliever Jeremiah Estrada, on Pete Alonso’s groundout. Daniel Vogelbach (flyout) and Starling Marte (groundout) did not come through.
They had yet another chance in the seventh, a pair of singles putting two on with two out again. But Jeff McNeil, freshly into the game as a pinch hitter, struck out swinging against Mark Leiter Jr.
Ultimately, the Mets totaled two runs and four hits off Smyly, who tossed five innings — which actually increased his ERA to 2.93. The Mets’ highlight: Pete Alonso’s 434-foot home run in the fourth inning.
His major league-leading 18th long ball of the season also was his seventh in 12 career games at Wrigley Field.
Megill’s biggest issue was the second inning, when the Cubs (21-26) rallied for four runs. Seiya Suzuki crushed a leadoff homer to straightaway center. Christopher Morel walked, advanced to second on a groundout and took third when Megill’s fastball got by catcher Gary Sanchez for a passed ball — the first of several oopsies by Mets defenders.
With two outs, Yan Gomes sent a bouncing ground ball toward third baseman Brett Baty, who fielded it cleanly on the run but opted not to throw to first to try to get Gomes. That allowed Morel to score the second run.
The next batter, Matt Mervis, homered to left-centerfield, turning what was nearly a one-run inning into a four-run mess.
Shoddy defense struck again when leftfielder Tommy Pham dropped a flyball from Mike Tauchman for two-base error. That set up a sequence in which the Cubs scored a pair of unearned runs.
Megill rebounded by striking out the next two batters, but Mervis came through again with an RBI single shot through the right side of the infield. He scored on Dansby Swanson’s single through the same spot.
That was when manager Buck Showalter pulled Megill, who threw 78 pitches.
The Mets’ bullpen largely kept the Cubs at bay from there. Dominic Leone tossed 1 1/3 scoreless innings. Stephen Nogosek pitched 2 2/3, his only blemish Moral’s solo shot in the seventh. Jeff Brigham retired the final Cubs batter.
It wasn’t clear why Sanchez was playing other than Showalter wanted him to. Rookie backstop Francisco Alvarez wasn’t going to catch all three games in the series, he explained, and he didn’t want Sanchez “to get too far away” from playing.
Starting his second game out of four since the Mets promoted him from the minors, Sanchez played poorly, including the key passed ball in Megill’s long second. He also failed to catch — and didn’t even get a glove on — a routine pop-up behind the plate and seemed to have trouble blocking pitches in the dirt.
Eduardo Escobar, in the lineup because of his 8-for-14, four-homer track record against Smyly, went 1-for-3.
