As the saying goes, momentum in baseball is the next day’s starting pitcher.
For all the positivity that Monday’s walk-off victory produced, it came with the realization that the weak link in the rotation — Jose Quintana — was on the mound on Tuesday.
So, no, the Mets didn’t have any real momentum — Quintana’s effort didn’t allow any.
Five days after being given a five-run lead and flushing it, he was noncompetitive against the Orioles.
The Mets never had a chance with Quintana’s latest blowup, falling 9-5 in what was an ugly, one-sided showing in Queens.
“I know the team needs me and I want to do [my job] and contribute to the team winning games,” Quintana said. “It’s tough when you get a bad day like that.”
It has been a nightmarish August for the veteran southpaw.
The Mets (65-61) have lost all four of his starts as he has pitched to a gruesome 8.27 ERA.
His season ERA now stands at 4.57 — the highest it has been since June 28.
The Mets, however, remain committed to Quintana, according to Carlos Mendoza.
“Right now he’s in our rotation and we’re going to need him,” Mendoza said. The manager added: “Back-to-back outings for him where it has been a struggle. We just have to continue to work with him.”
The loss coupled with Atlanta’s win over the Phillies dropped the Mets to three games behind the Braves in the loss column for the final NL wild-card spot.
But Mendoza isn’t scoreboard-watching just yet.
“We’ve got to win our games here,” Mendoza said. “If we’re not winning games, it doesn’t matter.”
Quintana said again he feels healthy and it’s merely a lack of execution and command that is hurting him.
It continued in his latest outing.
He was touched up for two-run homers by Anthony Santander and former Met James McCann, walked two and gave up eight hits and seven earned runs across five shoddy innings.
He’s averaged four walks per start this month, and has also been taken deep four times.
That’s a losing combination.
The Mets defense didn’t help him out, either, in a three-run fourth inning.
Jesse Winker couldn’t get to a Colin Cowser drive that appeared catchable and Francisco Alvarez flubbed a Jose Urias roller down the first-base line that enabled Cowser to score all the way from first.
Three pitches later, McCann launched a 408-foot bomb into the seats in left field — the kind of impact he rarely produced in his two seasons with the Mets. Quintana was loudly booed as he came off the mound.
“Today pitch sequencing we probably need to do a better job there,” Mendoza said. “Throwing a hanging breaking ball there to Santander and then throwing a fastball that looks like McCann is right on it and goes back to it. He has to do a better job of keeping them in the park.”
At that point, it was 6-1, and the rest of the night felt like a formality.
The Mets’ hot-and-cold offense didn’t do much against Dean Kremer, managing just a Mark Vientos RBI double in six innings.
They did rally late, getting to within two on J.D. Martinez’s three-run shot with one out in the eighth.
But reliever Danny Young allowed three runs in the ninth to end any thoughts of a comeback.
With runners on first and second, Gunnar Henderson blooped a single off Brandon Nimmo’s glove.
Two throwing errors on the play later, by Nimmo and Alvarez, allowed an extra run to score, an apt cap to the forgettable night for the Mets.
