Former Met James McCann continued to get revenge against his old team.
The Baltimore catcher belted a booming two run home run and added a sacrifice fly to give him a three RBI night as the Orioles held off a late surge by the Mets to even the series with a 9-5 win at Citifield Tuesday night.
The Orioles teed off on Mets starter Jose Quintana, who continues to struggle this month. The left hander pitched five innings and gave up seven earned runs on eight hits, five for extra bases.
The Mets could get nothing going against Orioles starter Dean Kremer. The right hander gave up a run on two hits in six innings pitched with three walks and seven strikeouts.
The Orioles wasted no time in getting on the scoreboard in the top of the first after it appeared Quintana would be spared.
Austin Slater led off with a single to right. After Ryan Mountcastle flied out, Slater was caught stealing on a beautiful throw from Monday night’s hero, Mets catcher Francisco Alvarez.
Quintana walked Gunnar Henderson on a 3-2 pitch and Anthony Santander drove a 3-2 pitch over the left field wall for his 37th home run of the season and a 2-0 lead.
Colton Cowser led off the second inning with a deep drive to left field. Brandon Nimmo appeared to make a spectacular catch but the ball came out of the glove and scraped the wall. After an out call was made initially, the Orioles successfully challenged and Cowser ended up a third with a triple.
“I thought I caught it, I felt it hit the glove and I thought I caught it,” Nimmo said.
Quintana struck out Ramon Urias for the first out, but McCann lifted a fly ball to center that was deep enough to score Cowser to give the Orioles a 3-0 lead.
The Mets scored a run in the third on Mark Vientos’ RBI double but Baltimore added three more runs off Quintana in the fourth, thanks in part to a fundamental mistake that has plagued the Mets a number of times already this season.
With one out, Cowser lined a double over the head of Jesse Winker in right field.
Urias then hit a swinging bunt down the first base line. Alvarez tried to make a play but tripped in doing so. Urias reached first, but the Mets have experienced lapses in covering bases a number of times this season. No one covered home and Cowser was able to easily score all the way from second on an infield hit.
McCann was next and he slammed a 1-1 pitch from Quintana into the second deck in left field for a two run homer and a 6-1 lead. In three games over the last two seasons, McCann is 5 for 9 against his old team with two doubles, a home run and 8 runs batted in.
Eloy Jimenez’ RBI double in the fifth gave the Orioles a 7-1 lead and Quintana was done after five.
It’s been a rough month for Quintana. After going 3-1 with a 2.05 ERA in July, the 35-year old is 0-3 this month with an 8.27 ERA (19 ER in 20 2/3 IP) to lift his season ERA to 4.57.
“We got to do a better job of keeping them in the park,” Mets Manager Carlos Mendoza said. “Whether it’s he’s [Quintana] nibbling a little too much, getting behind in counts, but then when he comes in the zone, he’s leaving pitches up and they’re doing damage.”
The Mets finally showed some life with a four run rally in the eighth that was aided by an error and then gave back two more runs in the ninth thanks to some miscues of their own.
With one out, Francisco Lindor lined a ball to left center field that he hustled into a double against Orioles reliever Burch Smith. Vientos then hit a routine grounder that was booted by Henderson to put two runners on.
Nimmo lined a double to right to score Lindor and then J.D. Martinez hit a three run homer to cut Baltimore’s lead to 7-5 as the crowd of 34,225 came alive. It was Martinez’s 14th home run of the season and his second in two games after he had gone 14 games without a round tripper.
The Orioles went to Yennier Cano to stem the tide and he got the final two outs to keep it a two run lead.
Baltimore had Ryan Mountcastle on first and Cedric Mullins on second with one out against Mets reliever Danny Young in the ninth when Henderson lined a ball to left. Nimmo came in and tried to make the play, but it went off his glove.
Nimmo admitted he was a little hesitant trying to protect his shoulder that he injured on Sunday making a similar play. “I don’t want to put all my pressure on this arm and I don’t want it to slip out,” he said. “There’s a lot going through the head. I was trying to be as safe as I could and that’s usually when mistakes happen.”
Things got really hairy from there. Nimmo picked up the ball and threw home to try and get Mullins at the plate but the throw got past Alvarez for an error.
Young picked the ball up and threw it past third trying to get Mountcastle, who scored on the second error and took the life out of the Mets after their eighth inning rally.
“Once you start throwing the ball all over the place, it’s not a good thing. We just got to stop it there and limit the damage,” Mendoza said.