Examining the Mets’ late-game bullpen decisions in loss that forces decisive Game 3

MILWAUKEE — As the New York Mets alternated between the Atlanta Braves and Milwaukee Brewers this past week, they had banished any thoughts of fatigue. The adrenaline of their postseason push, the momentum of their late-season magic, could take them deeper into October.

Late Wednesday, six outs away from their first postseason series victory in nine years, the constraints imposed by their schedule caught up with them.

Jackson Chourio and Garrett Mitchell each took setup man Phil Maton deep in a three-run eighth inning, and the Brewers came back to stun the Mets 5-3 in Game 2 of this best-of-three Wild Card Series. Jose Quintana will face Tobias Myers in the decisive Game 3 on Thursday evening.

“We took a hit today,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “We’ll be right back.”

Much of the night had gone according to plan for Mendoza and the Mets. They had scored early with one in the first and two in the second, and they had consistently put pressure on Milwaukee’s pitching staff. Sean Manaea recovered from Chourio’s leadoff home run in the first inning to hold the lead. And the first two pitchers out of the bullpen were sharp, with Reed Garrett and Ryne Stanek looking at the minimum in scoreless frames.

That brought the Mets into the bottom of the eighth inning with a one-run lead and the top of the Brewers order in sight, starting with Chourio.

Two factors influenced the Mets’ decision to turn to Maton for the eighth time, even though he would be pitching for the fourth time in five days. First, even though closer Edwin Díaz was available, the Mets didn’t want to use him for more than three outs given Díaz’s heavy usage of late. (Mendoza said, “We were going to stick with one inning today,” and Díaz said he was told to be prepared to secure four outs if necessary.)

Second, they liked Maton’s cutter against Chourio’s swing. Chourio’s projected numbers against cutters were worse than those against fastballs and sliders: of the 22 home runs he had hit so far this season, nine were on fastballs, four on sliders and none on cutters.

That’s why they went with Maton to keep Stanek and his hard four-seam fastball in the game, and that’s why they preferred to keep Díaz in the middle of the order in the ninth.

“The whole time we were going through the situation, we wanted a Maton-Chourio matchup,” Mendoza said. “It just didn’t work.”

Maton had earned his way into the primary role by throwing out the lights since coming over from the Tampa Bay Rays midseason. New York has leaned heavily on him this week. He got five outs on Saturday and three more on Sunday, then went out again in the eighth on Monday to protect the lead, ultimately giving up two runs.

He felt ready to pitch Wednesday, even if it meant a fourth appearance in five days.

“I feel great. It’s playoff baseball,” he said. “The adrenaline is flowing, everything feels good.”

Chourio nailed a 1-1 cutter in the zone to right field for his second opposite-field home run of the night. At the time, Maton had not given up a home run in his last 108 batters.

He would later serve another four batters to Mitchell, who had come in as a pinch runner two innings earlier. That came up on a curveball.

“He left a lot of pitches in the middle of the zone,” Mendoza said. “Overall it was okay, even though we asked a lot of him.”

The Mets’ lack of a reliable lefty bit them against Mitchell, who hit a walk-off homer against them last season. New York has distanced itself from Danny Young in key moments lately due to his control issues, and while Mendoza said before the game that starter David Peterson would be available out of the pen, he changed course after the game. “He wasn’t available,” he said. . “He wasn’t even involved in the conversation.”

Milwaukee’s eighth-inning rally spotlighted all the runs the Mets left on base. They could have scored a second run in the opening frame had Pete Alonso not tripped over his bat on the way to the first run, allowing the Brewers to turn an easy double play. The Mets had a runner on second base with no one out in the fourth and two outs in the fifth. They didn’t score. They had the first two men batting in the sixth and a lead man in the eighth. They didn’t score.

“I thought we had really good at-bats,” Mendoza said. “We just didn’t get the big hit today.”

The Mets have been talking for weeks about playing playoff baseball, about playing with the urgency the postseason requires during the latter part of September just to get there. Thursday presents that challenge in the starkest terms: win or go home.

“We have responded to adversity all year,” said Alonso. “I am very excited about this challenge. This is what the playoffs are about.”

(Photo by Phil Maton: John Fisher/Getty Images)