Dodgers dominate Mets, Adrian Houser in series-ending shutout
The Dodgers routed the Mets 10-0 in Los Angeles, but New York still came away with a series win against one of the most talented teams in the majors. The loss ended the Mets’ six-game winning streak. They are now 12-4 since their 0-5 start.
Here are the takeaways:
1. The Mets were no match for Tyler Glasnow, the Dodgers’ No. 1 starter.
The 6-foot-8 right-hander, acquired in an offseason trade with the Tampa Bay Rays, showed off his ability to dominate on Sunday, racking up 10 strikeouts while shutting out the Mets over eight innings.
Glasnow is now 4-1 with a 2.92 ERA this season.
2. Adrian Houser got roughed up by the Dodgers in his worst start of the season, giving up eight runs on seven hits, including a Shohei Ohtani home run, in four-plus innings. The poor outing leaves him with a 7.45 ERA this season.
Houser hurt his own cause by issuing four walks, continuing a problematic pattern. In his four starts, he has now allowed 14 walks over 19-plus innings.
The right-hander has now had two very bad starts, against the Dodgers and Atlanta Braves. He also had two solid starts, against the Detroit Tigers and Pittsburgh Pirates, but has only worked past the fifth inning once.
3. The Mets are going to miss the injured Francisco Alvarez, obviously, but his replacement on the roster, Tomas Nido, became the team’s first catcher this season to throw out a base-stealer, nailing Will Smith in the third inning.
Opponents had been 28-for-28 stealing bases this season, the longest such streak in Mets history.
Omar Narvaez is expected to get the majority of the playing time behind the plate while Alvarez is out with a torn thumb ligament, but Nido is regarded as the better the defender, and that could change the equation -- especially since pitching has emerged as a strength of this Mets team.
4. Ohtani made history with his third-inning home run off Houser, passing Hideki Matsui for the most major league dingers by a Japanese-born player.
Ohtani’s home run was his fifth of the season and No. 176 in his seven-year MLB career, one more than Matsui did during his 10 seasons in the big leagues, the first seven of them with the Yankees.
Ohtani is off to a strong start in his first season with the Dodgers. He came into the game leading the majors with a .359 batting average.
5. The only semblance of good news for the Mets was Francisco Lindor lining a single to left center while hitting from the left side, as he continues to show signs of emerging from his awful start on that side of the plate.
Lindor was 5-for-55 as a lefty when he broke out with a big home run on Friday night, hammering a hanging slider into the right-center field bleachers. In the two games since, he has three hits to the opposite field, which is usually a good sign that Lindor is seeing the ball better, not trying to pull everything.
Game MVP: Glasnow
This is what the Dodgers envisioned when they acquired Glasnow from the Rays and signed him to a five-year, $136.5 million extension.
Glasnow has long been regarded as one of the most talented pitchers in baseball, but has been held back by injuries that had prevented him from throwing more than 120 innings in any of his previous seven seasons.
This season, he has been very good for LA, his only bad start coming last week against the Washington Nationals.
Highlights
What's next
The Mets begin a three-game series at the San Francisco Giants, with Monday's matchup on SNY.
New York LHP Jose Quintana (3.05 ERA) And Giants RHP Keaton Winn (4.09 ERA) are the starting pitchers for the 9:45 p.m. start.
