Edwin Diaz blows save as Mets lose to Rays in extras for gut-wrenching sweep (2024)

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Walk-offs, like the one the Rays pulled off Sunday, happen.

Jonny DeLuca drilled a gapper to left-center off Jake Diekman that Harrison Bader did everything to catch but couldn’t.

It skipped past the diving center fielder and brought the Rays from down a run to up a run in a 7-6, 10-inning win over the Mets, who were swept at Tropicana Field.

What rarely happens, though, defined a loss that brought Carlos Mendoza’s group to 16-18 and losers of 10 of 14.

The first stunning moment Sunday was quiet, a sixth-inning pinch-hit choice that sent Omar Narvaez to the bench.

The second was loud, a Randy Arozarena crack against Edwin Diaz to send the game to extra innings.

Start with the latter: The Mets were one strike away from escaping a hectic game.

After two quick outs in the ninth and with a one-run lead, Diaz tried a full-count slider to Arozarena, aiming down and away.

It was down but in the middle of the plate, a mistake that was rocketed 373 feet to left for a stunning, game-tying home run.

“I missed it,” said Diaz, who blew his first save in nearly two years, since May 24, 2022, and snapped a streak of 26 consecutive successful saves.

The Mets scored one in the 10th, largely because Brandon Nimmo reached on an error that scored Bader, but the bottom of the inning began with the most glaring issue of the Mets’ season thus far: Jose Caballero swiped third for the Rays’ seventh steal of the game.

The Rays ran at will, particularly against Narvaez. Caballero (who finished with four steals) swiped second in the third inning and scored on a two-out, bloop single.

Richie Palacios and Arozarena swiped bases in the fourth, further complicating a rough day from Luis Severino, who allowed four runs in five innings in which he walked six.

Mendoza had seen enough in the top of the sixth inning, when the Mets manager subbed in Nido as a pinch hitter who would finish the game behind the plate.

Such a move, particularly that early, is nearly nonexistent in today’s game, when teams almost never carry three catchers. The Mets do not, and it is unclear who would have caught if something happened to Nido.

The sixth-inning hook of Narvaez was stunning enough to elicit questions about his health, but Mendoza said Narvaez is fine.

Less fine, though, is the reality that the 32-year-old is 0-for-30 in throwing out base runners this season.

“The way they were running, I wanted Nido there,” said Mendoza, who added that Narvaez is putting in plenty of work, but the team “has got to be better” at holding runners.

“I thought our pitchers were a lot better today with times to the plate,” Mendoza said. “We just couldn’t do much about it.”

Narvaez said his main objective has been to try to get rid of the ball sooner. He was asked why he and the team have had such a hard time holding runners.

“That’s a good question,” said Narvaez, who watched Nido throw out one runner but allow four steals of his own. “There’s nothing we can say. We just got to keep working.”

The Mets, whose best arm behind the plate (Francisco Alvarez) also struggled to hold runners before he was sidelined, have allowed a majors-worst 52 steals and nabbed just three.

Some of those base-stealers scored Sunday, and some just annoyed.

The Mets’ bullpen, handed a one-run lead in the sixth inning, pitched well until Diaz’s slip.

In the seventh, Reed Garrett walked Caballero and watched him steal second and third, getting a line out to escape.

After Arozarena took Diaz deep, Amed Rosario singled and swiped second, stranded there because a strikeout helped Diaz send the game to the 10th.

Forgotten by the end was the chaotic beginning. Within the first four innings, the Mets were up two, then down one, then tied, then down one, then up one.

Francisco Lindor’s first-inning homer gave them a lead, and a few second-inning misplays from Brett Baty cost them that lead.

The teams went back and forth until the Rays, quite literally, ran away.

That left the Mets with a second straight gut-punch, following Christian Scott’s brilliance that was wasted Saturday, and a disappointing sweep.

“Tough loss,” Mendoza said. “Tough series.”