Mets pull Christian Scott early, fail to complete sweep of Rockies

“It’s part of it because we had to use a lot of our guys, and obviously, some of them weren’t available today,” Mendoza said. “We got the win yesterday. I’m not gonna blame that on them. Obviously, we had chances today and we couldn’t add on there.”

One day after an offensive outburst in cold weather, the sun came out in Denver, but the Mets’ bats cooled considerably. They scored twice in the second inning against left-hander Jose Quintana, but couldn’t drive in runners on first and third in the third, and left runners on base in the fifth, sixth, seventh and ninth innings. The Mets emptied their bench trying to make something happen offensively to no avail.

In the ninth, they had two on with none out, before right-hander Antonio Senzatela (2-0) retired the next three in order, preserving the win for Colorado (15-23).

The Mets went 1 for 9 with runners in scoring position, leaving seven runners on base.

Quintana, who pitched for the Mets in 2023 and 2024, held them to two earned runs on five hits, walked two and struck out two.

“We expanded [the strike zone],” Mendoza said. “With Q, this is a guy that’s going to nibble, nibble, nibble, and when we were ahead in counts, we chased. He got the ground ball when he needed to.”

Scott was pulled after walking leadoff hitter Eduard Julien on four pitches with two outs in the fifth. He had thrown only 82 pitches, giving up one run on three hits, walking two and striking out six. The Mets often play it conservative with their young starters, especially with one like Scott, who sat out last season to rehab from 2024 Tommy John surgery.

Mendoza confirmed this was the case in Scott’s third major league start of the season.

“Given where he’s been the past couple of weeks, coming back from a whole year after missing [the season], we had a number of pitches in mind, and he pretty much went over that number of pitches,” Mendoza said. “So he did his part; we just couldn’t close it out.”

Scott didn’t protest the decision.

“That’s not for me to decide,” he said. “I feel like, whenever I get the ball, I’m going to go out there and compete. Whatever Mendy thinks is going to give the team the best chance to win the game that day, I’m all for it. Obviously, I would have liked not to have had a four-pitch walk to get the trigger pulled, but yeah, I feel like I did a good job in the zone for the most part.

“I respect the decision for sure.”

With this bullpen, the Mets may want to reconsider their approach.