Schwei's Mets Notes: Wrigley Struggles, Thor's Stingy 'W' And More Strange Stats
By John Schweibacher
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The New York Mets have snapped their season-worst five-game losing streak with a pair of wins over the Milwaukee Brewers.
Noah Syndergaard earned his first major league win in his home debut Sunday as the Mets defeated the Brewers, 5-1. The Elias Sports Bureau notes that Syndergaard, who allowed three hits over six innings, is the third Mets pitcher to record a win as a starter and allow three hits or fewer in his first game at Citi Field, joining Oliver Perez (in the franchise's first win at Citi Field vs. the Padres back on April 15, 2009) and Fernando Nieve (vs. Rays June 19, 2009).
The Mets' losing streak came to an end with a 14-1 victory over the Brewers Saturday night. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, that matched the Mets' largest margin of victory in a game that snapped a losing streak of at least five games.
On September 29, 2007, the Mets beat the Marlins 13-0 to snap a five-game losing streak in the next-to-last game of the regular season. John Maine's no-hit bid came to an end with two outs in the eighth inning at Shea Stadium that day.
Wilmer Flores, batting ninth in the Mets' lineup, hit a grand slam in New York's 10-run fourth inning Saturday. Elias notes that Flores is the fourth player in Mets history to hit a grand slam in a game as the starter in the ninth spot in the batting order. The others to do this for the Mets were pitchers Carl Willey in 1963 and Jack Hamilton in 1967, and shortstop Jose Reyes in 2003, his first major league home run at Anaheim.
The Brewers are now 14-8 at Citi Field since it opened in 2009. Here are the National League clubs with the best records against the Mets at Citi Field:
-- Nationals 40-20 (.667)
-- Reds 13-7 (.650)
-- Brewers 14-8 (.636)
-- Giants 13-8 (.619)
-- Dodgers 10-8 (.555)
The Cubs completed a sweep of their four-game series against the Mets at Wrigley Field, 6-5, on Thursday.
The Mets have now lost seven straight games at Wrigley Field dating back to June 3, 2014. The skid is the second-longest losing streak at the "Friendly Confines" in team history:
-- 9: 9/25/83 through 9/15/84
-- 7: 6/3/14 through 5/14/15
-- 6: 4/27/67 through 9/1/67
-- 6: 8/13/72 through 6/29/73
-- 6: 9/15/03 through 4/24/04
Anthony Recker hit two home runs in the Mets' loss Thursday, but it was his passed ball in the seventh inning which allowed the winning run to score in the Cubs' 6-5 victory.
Recker's multi-homer game was the first by a Mets catcher since Rod Barajas had three in 2010. According to the player game finder at baseball-reference.com, Recker is the 13th catcher to have at least one multi-homer game for the Mets:
-- Mike Piazza 15
-- Gary Carter 9
-- Todd Hundley 8
-- Rod Barajas 3
-- Hawk Taylor 2
-- Jesse Gonder 1
-- John Stephenson 1
-- Jerry Grote 1
-- Mackey Sasser 1
-- Jason Phillips 1
-- Paul Lo Duca 1
-- Brian Schneider 1
-- Anthony Recker 1
Syndergaard made his major-league debut for the Mets last Tuesday and batted in the eighth slot in the batting order. Elias noted that Syndergaard became just the third pitcher over the last 100 years to make his major-league debut in a non-DH game and not bat in the ninth spot in the batting order. Jack Urban hit eighth in the A's batting order on June 13, 1957 and Yoslan Herrera batted eighth for the Pirates on July 12, 2008.
Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo hit home runs on back-to-back pitches from Jacob deGrom in the first inning of the Cubs' 4-3 victory over the Mets last Monday night in Chicago.
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the back-to-back homers allowed by deGrom marked the second time in the last 35 years that a pitcher who had been awarded Rookie of the Year in his previous season surrendered back-to-back home runs in a game. Dontrelle Willis was the other defending Rookie of the Year to do so in that span, on August 30, 2004, David Wright and Jason Phillips hit back-to-back homers against the Marlins lefty at Shea Stadium in a 6-4 loss.
Happy Recap: Mets pitchers lead the majors with a 2.60 ERA (35 earned runs in 121.1 innings) in May.
Nine Miles of Rough Road: Despite their outburst over the weekend, the Mets are hitting .236 in May, the second-worst mark in the NL, ahead of only the Brewers at .232.
