SAN FRANCISCO — The reinforcements arrived, but it might as well have been the Return of the Living Dead.
Yoenis Cespedes and Asdrubal Cabrera were supposed to bring energy Friday night in their comeback from the disabled list, but the Mets still are waiting for that switch to be flipped.
In another embarrassment, the Mets hit a new low with an 8-1 loss to the Giants at AT&T Park. The defeat was the Mets’ third straight and fourth in five games, pushing them two games below .500 for the first time since mid-April. Their deficit in the race for the NL’s second wild-card berth increased to 5 ½ games, a clear danger zone, with five games — against the Giants and Cardinals — still remaining on this road trip.
Over their past five games, the Mets have allowed 46 runs, with inconsistent output offensively.
“When you go through bad stretches, it is everything,” manager Terry Collins said. “There is no one territory. It is everything. It’s a couple of base-running blunders, a couple of errors there, all of a sudden the bullpen, I think we have stretched them thin.”
Cespedes went 1-for-4 with a garbage-time single in his return from a strained right quadriceps that kept him sidelined for two weeks. Cabrera, who missed nearly three weeks with a strained left knee tendon, finished 1-for-4 with a single.
The game turned into a runaway in the eighth, when Cabrera’s throwing error allowed two runs to score. Erik Goeddel surrendered a two-run homer later in the inning to Conor Gillaspie.
Another goat was Jay Bruce, who hit into an inning-ending double play in the eighth with the tying runs on base. Bruce finished 0-for-4 and is batting .176 since he arrived in a trade-deadline deal with the Reds. Collins has told Bruce he will be on the bench Saturday.
“It’s been real frustrating,” Bruce said. “I’m a guy who believes he can truly make an impact. I have for a long time, and to not contribute much has been frustrating so far.”
In his first major league start, Seth Lugo was solid, allowing three earned runs on seven hits over 6 ²/₃ innings, using just 69 pitches. Ehire Adrianza’s RBI single against Jerry Blevins scored the go-ahead run in the seventh and Denard Span brought in another with a single.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been that efficient, pitch-count-wise, in my career,” Lugo said.
Lugo, a rookie, was pressed into starting duty after Steven Matz suffered shoulder discomfort during his throwing sessions following his Sunday start. Matz is scheduled to leave the team Sunday and be examined by team doctors in New York the following day.
In nine relief appearances for the Mets this season, Lugo was 0-1 with a 2.65 ERA, having allowed only 10 hits over 17 innings. As an insurance policy, Collins had Goeddel waiting as a potential option in the middle innings but didn’t need the right-hander until mop-up duty in the eighth.
Johnny Cueto, whom the Mets last saw in the World Series with the Royals, was a handful. The veteran righty allowed one run on eight hits with two strikeouts over seven innings.
A base-running meltdown for the Mets in the fifth led to the third out instead of a potential bases-loaded situation. Kelly Johnson singled to right, and Lugo, running from second, motored through third-base coach Tim Teufel’s stop sign. About 30 feet down the line before he picked up the stop sign, Lugo retreated to third, but Jose Reyes already was on his way to the bag. Lugo was tagged out in the ensuing rundown.
Span’s RBI single in the third tied it 1-1. Former St. John’s standout Joe Panik singled leading off the inning against Lugo before moving to second on Cueto’s sacrifice bunt and scoring on Span’s single.
Curtis Granderson’s two-out homer in the second gave the Mets a 1-0 lead. The blast just inside the foul pole landed in McCovey Cove beyond the right-field seats for the 40th “splash” homer by an opposing player in the ballpark’s history. The Giants have 70 such homers.