Mets bats fall silent again in loss to Brewers

MILWAUKEE — The Mets are still very capable of making the playoffs — mathematically speaking — but that might not matter if they hit like this.

They had two hits in a 6-0 loss to the Brewers on Saturday: Jose Iglesias’ single in the first and Starling Marte’s double in the fifth. After the latter, Milwaukee pitchers retired 15 of the next 16 batters to end the game.

This marks the continuation of a recent trend that became especially heated this week, when the Mets looked nothing like they had in the previous four months in three games. They failed to score consistently, if at all. Mark Vientos, Brandon Nimmo and Pete Alonso, for example, combined to go 0 for 11 with five strikeouts.

The game was close until Milwaukee (93-68) scored four runs in the eighth inning against Reed Garrett and Danny Young.

Like Sean Manaea the night before, Jose Quintana’s big groove ended at a terrible time. He recorded a season-high nine strikeouts but allowed two runs, five hits and two walks in 4 1/3 innings.

Well into the fourth inning, all of Milwaukee’s at-bats ended in strikeouts or hard contact – an unusual combination. Quintana, however, remained steady and kept the Brewers scoreless. Then he faltered in the fourth, walking two batters to load the bases with two outs for rookie infielder Joey Ortiz.

Ortiz’s looping drive — the weakly hit first ball off Quintana — scored two runs.

That ended Quintana’s career-best scoreless streak at 25 2/3 innings. It was the first time in September that a team had scored against him.

Phil Maton pitched 1 2/3 scoreless innings, lowering his ERA since joining the Mets to 1.98 in 29 appearances.

Maton came very close to a clean inning – three strikeouts on nine pitches – in the sixth. He got the first two batters on six total pitches, then edged the third 0 and 2. Isaac Collins fouled out on pitch #9, ruining Maton’s bid for the cool footnote, before sniffing the next offering.

Tim Healey is the Mets writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about Northeast minor league baseball.