Carlos Carrasco was supposed to take this Mets rotation to new heights upon his return from injury.
That time finally came, but there has been no rise — in fact, Sunday night hit a new low.
Carrasco was knocked out of Sunday’s 14-4 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers after just two innings. The righty allowed three runs to the reigning World Series champs in back-to-back innings to put the Mets in a 6-0 hole after two.
Once Trea Turner hit a leadoff single to start the game, all hell broke loose. The Dodgers hit five home runs on the night, with Carrasco responsible for three of them.
“I tried to do my best, I tried to do everything that I could, but it didn’t work this time,” he said after the game.
“Tonight was different, his stuff was different,” Luis Rojas said about Carrasco. “… The fastball didn’t have the zip that we know, the slider sometimes was just hanging and a team like this is just going to take advantage. So from start to start, he’s just got to pick it up.”
Carrasco was hard on himself after the game.
“It is, it is a little bit [disappointing],” Carrasco said on his start to the season, where, four appearances in, his ERA has ballooned to 10.32. “I’m a human being, I feel that way a little bit. … I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Cookie picked up his first decision of the season — a loss — and raised even more question marks for the reeling Mets team that is still missing Jacob deGrom, is now just one game over .500, and is in third place in the NL East after having a firm hold on the division for 90 days — their longest stretch since 2007.
The hope is that deGrom will be able to return this season, and Noah Syndergaard‘s season debut could be just a couple weeks away, but the Mets have a brutal 10-game stretch that has them facing the Dodgers again and the MLB-leading San Francisco Giants twice.