{"id":202068,"date":"2026-04-18T22:19:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T22:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/202068\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T22:19:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T22:19:07","slug":"mets-in-freefall-after-losing-10th-straight-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/202068\/","title":{"rendered":"Mets in freefall after losing 10th straight game"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHICAGO — Pinch-hitter Carson Kelly<\/a> connected for a tiebreaking three-run homer in the sixth inning, and the Chicago Cubs<\/a> handed the New York Mets<\/a> their 10th consecutive loss with a 4-2 victory on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Ian Happ<\/a> also homered for Chicago in its fourth consecutive win. Jameson Taillon<\/a> (1-1) pitched six crisp innings.<\/p>\n

It’s the longest losing streak for New York since it dropped 11 in a row from Aug. 28 to Sept. 8 in 2004. It has been outscored 60-18 during the slide.<\/p>\n

The game was tied at 1 when Mets right-hander Freddy Peralta<\/a> (1-2) issued two consecutive walks with two down in the sixth. Peralta then was replaced by left-hander Brooks Raley<\/a>, and Kelly was sent up to hit for Moises Ballesteros<\/a>, a rookie who bats from the left side.<\/p>\n

Kelly drove Raley’s first pitch into the bleachers in left-center for his second homer of the season, sending a charge through the crowd of 36,189. It was Kelly’s second career pinch-hit drive.<\/p>\n

It also was the first homer allowed by Raley since Aug. 13, 2023, stopping a streak of 53 2\/3 innings.<\/p>\n

Mark Vientos<\/a> homered for New York. Francisco Lindor<\/a> and Luis Robert Jr<\/a>. each had two hits.<\/p>\n

The Mets scored an unearned run on second baseman Nico Hoerner<\/a>‘s throwing error in the eighth, but Ben Brown<\/a> escaped the jam when Vientos grounded out.<\/p>\n

Caleb Thielbar<\/a> handled the ninth for his first save of the season. Daniel Palencia, Chicago’s usual closer, was placed on the 15-day injured list on Friday with a left oblique strain.<\/p>\n

New York jumped in front on Vientos’ 434-foot drive to left-center in the second. He went 1 for 25 with eight strikeouts and no walks in his previous eight games.<\/p>\n

Happ responded with a leadoff shot in the bottom half, a 431-foot drive to center. Happ also went deep during Chicago’s 12-4 victory in the series opener.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO — Pinch-hitter Carson Kelly connected for a tiebreaking three-run homer in the sixth inning, and the Chicago…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[80110,17705,3080,20,9,11,320,10,12],"class_list":{"0":"post-202068","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-80110","9":"tag-chicago-cubs","10":"tag-espn","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-mets","15":"tag-new-york-news","16":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}