Carlos Carrasco Shines In Season Debut, Mets Fail To Sweep Nationals After Late Collapse

Carlos Carrasco delivered a strong start in his season debut, but the Mets failed to sweep the Nationals after a late meltdown in D.C.

The new-look Mets were able to win their opening series of the 2022 regular-season, but could not pull off a four-game sweep of the Washington Nationals on Sunday due to a late-inning meltdown.

However, they still took three out of four games. And there were plenty of promising signs in this series, which possibly foreshadowed the type of year that the club could endure.

It was a strong weekend for Mets’ starting pitchers, who produced a 1.59 ERA, allowing just 4 earned runs on 11 hits, while striking out 25 batters and issuing two walks across 22.2 innings against Washington.

In the series finale, starting pitcher Carlos Carrasco was impressive in his season debut. Despite experiencing more first-inning woes, which were not an irregularity for the veteran hurler a season ago, Carrasco was able to limit the damage to one solo home run off the bat of Nelson Cruz, and dominated the rest of the way.

Carlos Carrasco's fifth and final strikeout of the day was a beauty 🥵 pic.twitter.com/Ek7IJczFmQ

— SNY (@SNYtv) April 10, 2022

Carrasco went 5.2 innings on 72 pitches (50 strikes), allowing one earned run on two hits, while striking out five and issuing zero walks. After surrendering a first-inning long ball to Cruz, Carrasco settled in by retiring the final 15 batters he faced.

Carrasco threw a healthy diet of changeups and sliders, which looked sharp and carried him through this outing. The 35-year-old previously said during spring training that he is able to gain the proper arm action to throw these pitches with more ease after getting a bone spur removed from his elbow in the offseason.

Carrasco left the game with a 2-1 lead, but the bullpen was unable to hang on for the victory. Manager Buck Showalter chose to stay away from Trevor May or Seth Lugo in the eighth inning of a one-run ball game, citing a desire to not pitch his top relievers on three out of four days this early in the season. In the end, this strategy came back to bite the Mets. 

"We're too early in the season to be throwing guys 3 out of 4 days"

Buck Showalter on the Mets' bullpen moves today: pic.twitter.com/oKVYb0CfI3

— SNY (@SNYtv) April 10, 2022

This left things up to Chasen Shreve, who despite throwing 1.1 scoreless innings, was left in to face the first batter of the eighth and allowed a leadoff hit. The Mets then brought in Trevor Williams and that's when things fell apart.

Williams surrendered a hit to put runners on the corners with nobody out. Nationals shortstop Lucious Fox then laid down a safety squeeze up the first base line, which was fielded by Pete Alonso, who tried making an underhand flip to the plate that could not get the speedy Dee Strange-Gordon in time. This tied the game at 2-2, but the Nationals weren't finished yet.

Alonso fielded a grounder from the next batter, but failed to record an out on the play as he threw wide of Francisco Lindor at second base. This loaded the bases for Cruz, who singled up the middle to put the Nationals ahead 4-2. 

Despite letting a late-lead slip away on Sunday, thus failing to complete a four-game sweep of the Nationals, the Mets will roll into Philadelphia on Monday to face the Phillies after a 3-1 start to the season. 

The Mets received strong performances from their starting rotation in the first series, and will hope this unit can sustain this type of consistency as the season progresses.