Cubs jump on Tylor Megill out of the gate as 5 run first inning sinks Mets
CHICAGO — After a few weeks of everything going right for the Mets, everything went wrong Saturday afternoon at Wrigley Field.
Tylor Megill was lit up by the Chicago Cubs in the first inning, right-hander Jameson Taillon extinguished one of the hottest lineups in baseball and outfielder Starling Marte was removed from the game after the first inning with a sore knee.
The Mets fell 8-1 in the second game of the series. They’ll go for the series win with a primetime ESPN Sunday Night Baseball game to finish a six-game road trip.
Francisco Alvarez supplied the Mets with their only run of the night with his third homer of the season and the second in as many games. With the Mets down 6-0, Alvarez led off the fifth with a shot off Taillon that went 433 to center field, where it was caught by a Mets fan in the bleachers who decided to appease the hometown crowd by throwing it back onto the field. Alvarez went 2 for 3 with a home run, a double and a walk, extending his hitting streak to five games. He’s hit safely in each of his last six starts.
Taillon went seven innings in the win (4-3), holding the Mets to only the Alvarez homer. He allowed six hits, walked none and struck out 10.
The Cubs (37-40) nearly knocked Megill (2-4) out of the game in the first inning. The big righty walked the first hitter of the game, got the first out on a force and then threw one wild to advance Michael Busch to scoring position. He then walked Cody Bellinger and gave up an RBI single to Seiya Suzuki to give Chicago a 1-0 lead.
Bellinger went from first to third on Suzuki’s single and Suzuki stole second. With runners on second and third, Megill got Ian Happ to ground out to shortstop, but Bellinger was able to score and Suzuki advanced to third, making it 2-0 Cubs.
From there, he gave up an RBI single, an RBI double and a triple to former Mets first-round draft pick Pete Crow-Armstrong, making it 5-0.
The Mets (36-39) got left-hander Danny Young up in the bullpen, but let Megill get out of the inning, getting his former teammate, No. 9 hitter Tomas Nido, to fly out to right field for the third out.
Megill pitched around a one-out walk in the second, but he still needed 22 pitches. With Taillon working quickly to retire the Mets, Megill wasn’t afforded much of a breather in the dugout.
After giving up a massive, 446-foot bomb to Christopher Morel in the third inning, the Mets got Young hot once again and subbed in the lefty in the fourth inning.
Working with more pitches this season, Megill has shown improvements, but he’s only been efficient enough to go past the fifth inning once. He gave up six earned on five hits and three walks over only three innings Saturday, striking out six.
Nido, who was released by the Mets earlier this week and signed by the Cubs on Wednesday, got revenge on the team that he spent 12 years with an RBI double off right-hander Adrian Houser. It put his new team up 7-1, and Bellinger made it 8-1 with a single later in the inning.
With two on and two out, Jeff McNeil struck out against right-hander Hector Neris to end the game.
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