Perhaps the addition of J.D. Martinez will prove to be a game-changer for the Mets over the course of a long season.
He couldn’t change his first game, though.
Martinez made a solid debut and drilled his first few hits with his new team, but he could not flip a switch for a Mets offense that was mostly turned off — going 2-for-11 with runners in scoring position and leaving five on base — in a 4-2 loss to open a series with the Cardinals in front of 24,159 in Citi Field on Friday night.
The Mets (13-12) dropped the first game of a seven-game homestand mostly because Jose Butto missed with location a few times and the Mets’ offense continually missed in important moments.
Martinez, who didn’t sign until deep into spring training and had to build up his body and his swing, looked ready to help but should not be seen as an immediate savior, partly because he doesn’t pitch.
Butto was up and down — actually, first down then up — while allowing four runs on four hits and three walks in 5 ²/₃ innings.
The 26-year-old dug the Mets in an early hole in the second inning.
After a hit-by-pitch and a walk, Alec Burleson saw a down-the-middle changeup and launched a bomb to right-center to quickly put the Cardinals up, 3-0.
“Other than that, I thought he was good,” manager Carlos Mendoza said, though Butto missed one more time.
An inning later, it was a middle-middle sinker that Willson Contreras demolished an estimated 445 feet off the second deck in left field, into rarely reached territory.
Butto retired the next 11 hitters he saw, continually had Cardinals hitters off-balance and extended an outing that could have been over early.
Filling in for Tylor Megill — who was filling in for Kodai Senga — Butto has been solid and owns a 2.86 ERA over four starts.
“I just made two mistakes in the beginning but I just continued working, continued battling,” said Butto, who kept the Mets in the game even if the offense could not make it matter.
The Mets only scored in the fifth (on a home run from Tomas Nido in his first game in Queens in nearly 11 months) and in the sixth (when Martinez’s double off the right-field wall drove in Francisco Lindor).
Otherwise the Mets, who outhit the Cardinals, 8-5, had their chances and wasted most of those chances.
“We got good at-bats, but we couldn’t cash in,” Mendoza said before beginning to bemoan the missed opportunities against Cardinals starter Miles Mikolas, who entered with a 6.49 ERA:
- A leadoff double from Brandon Nimmo followed by an infield single from Starling Marte was wasted in the first inning. Lindor fouled out before Pete Alonso grounded into a double play.
- Martinez reached second base in the second, but Harrison Bader and Brett Baty were retired.
- Nido doubled in the third, moved to third on a Nimmo flyout, then watched Marte strike out and Lindor ground out.
“Overall I thought we had decent at-bats,” Mendoza said. “Just couldn’t get the big hit.”
They could barely get any hits after they chased Mikolas in the sixth inning.
Three Cardinals relievers one-hit the Mets over the final 3 ¹/₃ innings, the only sign of life a leadoff single from Nimmo in the eighth inning.
Nimmo did not advance past first base.
The lack of offense around Martinez spoiled a successful, 2-for-4, delayed opening day for the Mets’ new DH.
Martinez called his first day “a little overwhelming” and joked that he would probably remember the names of “4 percent of the people I met today.”
Martinez will get more comfortable.
The Mets trust the rest of their offense will, too.
