Examine the Mets' late-game bullpen decisions in a loss that forces a decisive Game 3

MILWAUKEE – When the New York Mets played between the Atlanta Braves and the Milwaukee Brewers last week, they had banished any thoughts of fatigue. The adrenaline of their postseason push, the momentum of their late-season magic, could carry them deeper into October.

Late Wednesday, six outs away from their first postseason series win in nine years, they caught up to the limitations imposed by their schedule.

Jackson Chourio and Garrett Mitchell each struck out setup man Phil Maton deep in a three-run eighth inning, and the Brewers came back to beat the Mets 5-3 in Game 2 of this best-of-three wild-card series to defeat. Jose Quintana will face Tobias Myers in the decisive Game 3 on Thursday evening.

“We got beat today,” said manager Carlos Mendoza. “We’ll be right back.”

Most of the evening went according to plan for Mendoza and the Mets. They had scored early, one in the first and two in the second, and they had continually put pressure on Milwaukee's pitching staff. Sean Manaea rebounded Chourio's leadoff home run in the first to maintain the lead. And the first two pitchers out of the bullpen were sharp, with Reed Garrett and Ryne Stanek facing the minimum in scoreless frames.

That left the Mets entering the bottom of the eighth with a one-run lead and the top of the Brewers order looming, starting with Chourio.

Two factors influenced the Mets' decision to turn to Maton for the eighth time, even though he would be pitching for the fourth time in five days. First, despite closer Edwin Díaz, the Mets didn't want to use him for more than three outs because Díaz has been used a lot lately. (Mendoza said, “We were just going to keep it at one inning today,” and Díaz said he was told to be ready to secure four outs if necessary.)

Second, they liked Maton's cutter against Chourio's swing. Chourio's expected numbers against cutters were worse than those against fastballs and sliders: of the 22 home runs he had hit to this point this season, nine had come on fastballs, four on sliders and none on cutters.

That's why they chose Maton over keeping Stanek and his hard four-seam fastball in the game, and that's why they preferred to keep Díaz in the middle of the order in the ninth.

“While we were going through the situation, we wanted a match between Maton and Chourio,” Mendoza said. “It just didn’t work.”

Since being traded from the Tampa Bay Rays mid-season, Maton had earned his way into the primary player role by shutting out the field. New York relied on him heavily this week. He got five outs on Saturday and three more on Sunday, and he was out again in the eighth Monday to defend the lead, ultimately giving up two runs.

He felt ready to pitch Wednesday, even if it meant his fourth appearance in five days.

“I feel great. It’s playoff baseball,” he said. “Adrenaline is flowing, everything feels good.”

Chourio hit a 1-1 shot in the zone to right field for his second home run of the night into the opposite field. At that point, Maton had not conceded a home run in his last 108 batters.

He would serve another four batters to Mitchell, who had entered the game as a pinch runner two innings earlier. That went up steeply.

“He left a lot of throws in the middle of the zone,” Mendoza said. “Overall everything was fine, even though we asked a lot of him.”

The Mets' lack of a reliable left-handed hitter hurt them against Mitchell, who hit a walk-off home run against them last season. New York has held back in key spots of late because of its control issues in front of Danny Young, and while Mendoza said before the game that starter David Peterson would be available out of the box, he changed course after the game: “He wasn't available “, he said. “He wasn’t even part of the conversation.”

Milwaukee's rally in the eighth inning put a spotlight on all the runs the Mets had left on the bases. They could have scored a second run in the first frame if Pete Alonso hadn't tripped over his bat on the way to the first, allowing the Brewers an easy double play. The Mets had a runner on second, no one had an out in the fourth and there were two outs in the fifth. They didn't score. They had the first two men in the sixth and a leader in the eighth. They didn't score.

“I thought we had really good bats,” Mendoza said. “We just didn’t get the big hit today.”

The Mets have been talking for weeks about playing playoff baseball, about playing with the urgency that the postseason requires in the final stretch of September, just to get there. Thursday presents that challenge in the biggest way possible: win or go home.

“We responded to adversity all year long,” Alonso said. “I’m really looking forward to this challenge. That’s what the playoffs are about.”

(Photo by Phil Maton: John Fisher/Getty Images)