Huascar Brazobán, Brandon Nimmo cost Mets in late night loss to LA

The Mets were three outs away from a fifth straight win. Plus, why can't this team ever play a normal game on the West Coast?

Imagn Images

What’s up with the Mets? ⚾

• The Mets suffered a walk-off loss on Tuesday night, falling to the Dodgers 6-5 in 10 innings (box)

• With the loss, New York’s four-game winning streak officially came to an end

• RHP Huascar Brazobán blew the save in the 9th inning, and LF Brandon Nimmo misplayed a fly ball in the bottom of the 10th to lose the game

• RHP Tylor Megill bounced back from a difficult first inning, allowing four runs with seven strikeouts over six frames

• RF Juan Soto went 1-for-5 at the plate with a two-run home run (11)

• 3B Ronny Mauricio went 0-for-4 with a strikeout in his first major league game since the end of the 2023 season

• New York is now 3-2 against the Dodgers this season, with three of those five games going into extra innings

• RHP Edwin Díaz was named the National League Reliever of the Month after allowing just three hits and no runs over 11 appearances in May

---

Injury Updates 🏥

• INF Mark Vientos (right hamstring discomfort) flew to New York on Tuesday for additional testing to determine the severity of his injury

---

Roster Moves 📰

• INF Mark Vientos (hamstring) placed on 10-day injured list

• INF Ronny Mauricio recalled from Triple-A Syracuse

• RHP Max Kranick optioned to Triple-A Syracuse

• LHP Brandon Waddell recalled from Triple-A Syracuse

---

---

Play of the Game ⭐️

With Edwin Díaz unavailable after pitching in three of the last four games, the club turned to Huascar Brazobán to close the game out, and … yeahhhhhh, you don’t wanna throw the ball there…

Ahead of the count 1-2, Brazobán missed his spot and threw a fat pitch up and in the middle of the zone to Max Muncy, who promptly blasted the ball into the right-field seats for a game-tying home run.

While Brazobán did bounce back well enough to get the game into extra innings, it wouldn’t ultimately matter as the Mets eventually lost in the 10th.

---

Who’s Hot? 🔥

• RF Juan Soto has recorded an extra-base hit in five straight games, hitting .333 with three home runs, three doubles, five RBI and four runs scored

• Pete Alonso has hits in nine of his last 10 games and has three home runs and 10 RBI during that span

• Over his last 13 games, Francisco Lindor is hitting .303/.387/.623 with two doubles, five home runs and eight RBI with 16 hits and 12 runs scored during that span

---

Down on the Farm 🌾

• RHP Frankie Montas (Triple-A, rehab): 4 IP, 8 H, 5 ER, BB, 3 K (loss)

• SS Jesus Baez (No. 7 prospect, Double-A): 3-for-5, 2B, 2 RBI, 2 runs scored

BOX SCORES

Low-A STL | High-A BRK | Double-A BNG | Triple-A SYR

---

Today’s Game 🗓️

Match-up: Mets (38-23) at Dodgers (37-23)

Where: Dodger Stadium — Los Angeles, CA

Starters: RHP Griffin Canning (5-2, 3.23 ERA) vs. RHP Tony Gonsolin (3-1, 5.23 ERA)

When: 10:10 PM EDT

Where to Watch: SNY, MLB Network

---

Why are the Mets incapable of playing normal games on the West Coast? ✍️

Getty Images

The Mets have lost a lot of strange, bizarre, and just plain dumb games over the years on the West Coast, and I mean a lot of them. Specifically in Dodger Stadium.

We all know the list, so I’ll keep it brief just as a refresher.

Ryan Church missing third base, Jeremy Reed throwing the ball past home plate with a five-man infield, Edwin Díaz melting down and blowing a three-run lead back in 2019. I could probably keep going, but I think we all get the picture here.

For all intents and purposes, the Mets season has not truly begun until you’ve experienced yourself lying on the couch, eyes barely hanging onto any final bits of energy to stay open, watching the team blow a late lead in the most unimaginable way possible at 1:00 in the morning.

I don’t know what it is, exactly, but for whatever reason, this franchise simply isn’t capable of just playing a normal game out at Dodger Stadium – especially the late ones.

The team narrowly avoided one of those “vintage” types of losses the night prior on Monday, as they rebounded from Díaz blowing his first save of the season with a narrow 4-3 win in extra innings that came down to the final at-bat. Last night, it looked as if the Mets were about to nail down another tight win until things began to unravel.

With Díaz unavailable, the club turned to Huascar Brazobán – who has been brilliant this season with a 1.30 ERA entering last night’s game – to close out the victory. But pitching on back-to-back nights proved to be too much for the right-handed reliever this time around as Brazobán’s 1-2 fastball missed over the plate and was absolutely blasted by Max Muncy into the right-field stands for a game-tying homer in the 9th.

Not only did that home run wipe away the Mets’ lead (and that Clayton Kershaw would remain undefeated against the club in his regular season career), but it also ensured that an already late night was going to extend even further.

To peel the curtain back a bit, I admittedly think I was more upset that I’d have to wait even deeper into the night to get started on this newsletter than I was about Brazobán blowing the lead.

Unlike the night prior, though, the Mets offense was not able to bounce back as the heart of the order – Juan Soto, Pete Alonso, and Brandon Nimmo – combined to go 0-for-3 with two strikeouts, stranding the ghost runner in an auspicious moment for this lineup.

Based on this franchise’s recent history in this ballpark, those moments on their own still weren’t enough to qualify for one of their classic, bizarre West Coast losses.

No, for that, we needed to be subjected to one final moment of baseball cruelty.

With old friend Freddie Freeman at the plate with one out in the bottom of the 10th, he lifted a fly ball to deep left field. As the ball continued to carry out to the left field fence, Nimmo chased it deeper and deeper out toward the warning track. In one last twist of fate, the ball appeared to carry in a direction that Nimmo hadn’t anticipated, leading to the ball simply landing on the warning track next to him for an unusual, poorly played walk-off hit.

“Unfortunately, sometimes that happens,” Nimmo told reporters after the loss. “Sometimes, the ball doesn't go the way you think.”

I don’t know what cosmic energy has drawn the Mets and Dodgers Stadium together in a string of chaotic moments that have largely gone one way over the last two decades, but whatever it is remains strong to this day.

The late-night, West Coast meltdown seems to be a staple in any Mets season.

It’s a tough loss. Hopefully, that means we’ve gotten ours out of the way early this year. In another world though, that could be a gut punch. But this team will bounce back and the Mets just need to split the next two games to win the season series and tiebreaker against the Dodgers.

Let’s do this!

---

Around the League 🚩

• Reds CF TJ Friedl made a game-saving, home run robbing catch for the final out of the club’s 4-2 win over the Brewers to end Milwaukee’s eight-game win streak

• The Braves lost for the sixth time in their last eight games, falling to the Dbacks by an 8-3 score

• Cubs CF Pete Crow-Armstrong became the fourth fastest player to reach 15 home runs and 20 stolen bases in Chicago’s 8-3 win vs. the Nationals

• In his return from the injured list, Yankees INF Jazz Chisholm hit the go-ahead home run in the team’s 3-2 win over the Guardians