Mets winning streak halted at 7 despite solid outing from Manaea

ARLINGTON -- Seven batters into his start Wednesday night, Mets lefty Sean Manaea had ensured that his game against the Rangers would be anything but perfect. He had already issued three consecutive two-out walks and plunked a hitter with the bases loaded. The chances that Manaea would carry anything into the sixth inning, much less a no-hitter, seemed slim.

Yet after the initial damage, in a 5-3 loss to the Rangers at Globe Life Field, Manaea retired 14 batters in a row before allowing his first hit of the game. He ended up with a no-decision as the Mets saw their season-long, seven-game winning streak end. Still, they’ve won 11 of their past 14 games and have won or split each of their past six series.

“After what we've been through, especially the month of May, and then for us to play good baseball, it shows that we’ve got a good team, and we’ve got guys that are going to continue to compete,” manager Carlos Mendoza said.

Manaea certainly continued to compete despite laboring to find the strike zone as his first inning unraveled. After he sat down from that taxing 36-pitch frame, a pep talk from Mendoza and catcher Francisco Alvarez helped.

“I wanted to pump him up a little bit,” Mendoza said.

Manaea described it more bluntly: “Sometimes you need somebody to just slap some sense into you and you go out there and compete.”

Wednesday’s start was important for Manaea considering that he hasn’t enjoyed the kind of success personally as his club has in June. While the Mets had their early June swoon, Manaea teetered unexceptionally through his previous three starts this month. He allowed 12 earned runs in 14 1/3 innings (a 7.53 ERA) and was roughed up for 17 hits during that span.

He seemed to be veering the same wayward direction. Manaea escaped the jam after that, though, and cruised until the sixth. By then, Manaea’s lofty pitch count had already made it unlikely he’d be on the mound for the final few outs of a no-hit bid. He exited after 95 pitches over 5 2/3 innings, with six strikeouts.

“The first inning could’ve been so much worse, but after that I reeled it in, getting ahead of guys, getting some quick outs,” Manaea said. “I’d say by far that was the best outing [of the past three or four], even though it was the worst start to it. I’ll take it.”

Manaea was charged with all three runs the Rangers scored in the sixth. But the loss fell on reliever Drew Smith, a native of nearby Fort Worth who surrendered the pivotal two-run homer to Leody Taveras in the seventh. After recording a scoreless ninth inning in Monday’s win -- in front of some 70 friends and family for whom he’d scored tickets -- Smith left a fastball too far up and too down the middle for Taveras, who muscled up for a 405-foot homer.

“I experienced a pretty good high [Monday] and a pretty bad low [Wednesday],” Smith said. “So I just try not to ride the roller coaster.”