hand the Mets a three-run Little League homer, thanks to three errors<\/a> on one play, in the bottom of the first.<\/p>\nThat proved to be just an appetizer for a bizarre night and it still couldn\u2019t propel the Mets to a victory, as their ragtag pitching staff was no match for the Royals, who tagged the Phillies for 15 runs on Monday.<\/p>\n
The Mets showed plenty of their flaws Tuesday.<\/p>\n
For instance, Kodai Senga proved he can be nearly as ineffective out of the bullpen as he was as a starter.<\/p>\n
Mets reliever Matt Seelinger reacts after giving up a two-run home run to Kansas City Royals third baseman Nick Loftin (12) during the seventh inning on Tuesday, July 7, 2026. Robert Sabo for NY Post<\/p>\n
And even with that, the Mets built a five-run lead in the fourth.<\/p>\n
Just as quickly, Austin Warren entered to start the fifth and allowed all six batters he faced to reach base \u2014 and five of them to score, as Kansas City improbably tied the game 9-9.<\/p>\n
It overshadowed A.J. Ewing reaching base five times at the top of the order and hitting his sixth homer of the season.<\/p>\n
Among the many low points, with the game knotted heading into the seventh, Long Island native Matt Seelinger gave up a whopping seven runs in his MLB debut.<\/p>\n
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The right-hander immediately ran into trouble, as he walked Lane Thomas on four pitches and then gave up an RBI double to Salvador Perez.<\/p>\n
Nick Loftin tagged Seelinger for a two-run shot later in the inning.<\/p>\n
He survived and pitched a scoreless eighth, but it didn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n
Coming off back-to-back close wins in Atlanta, the Mets returned to Queens, where they\u2019d lost six of seven in their last homestand.<\/p>\n
Mets pitcher Austin Warren (44) reacts on the mound during the fifth inning. Robert Sabo for NY Post<\/p>\n
Looking to win a third straight game for the first time since their four-game winning streak at the end of May, the Mets instead suffered another brutal defeat.<\/p>\n
After Cionel P\u00e9rez opened with a scoreless first, Senga gave up a two-run shot to Tyler Tolbert in the second.<\/p>\n
A pitch away from walking a run in the fourth, Senga instead gave up a rocket double off the wall in left by Thomas to score a pair of runs and make it 5-4.<\/p>\n
Salvador Perez followed with a sinking liner to left, which would have driven in two more runs, but Juan Soto\u2019s diving catch ended the inning.<\/p>\n
Soto then hit his 20th homer of the season in the bottom of the inning to seemingly give the Mets a comfortable lead.<\/p>\n
Mets left fielder Juan Soto (22) hits a three-run home run during the fourth inning. Robert Sabo for NY Post<\/p>\n
Not on this night.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe season presents these challenges,\u2019\u2019 interim manager Andy Green said before the game of the team\u2019s depleted bullpen and pitching mismatches.<\/p>\n
He couldn\u2019t have foreseen this one coming, though.<\/p>\n
And it doesn\u2019t figure to get much better anytime soon for a Mets team that is already staggering to the All-Star break with seemingly no answers on the horizon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Raise the white flag. As if a matchup of two last-place teams on a crummy night in Queens…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289969,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6595,20390,30930,20,9,11,320,10,319],"class_list":["post-289968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-carson-benge","tag-juan-soto","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-mlb","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-mets","tag-new-york-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289968","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=289968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}