Mets spoil Taijuan Walker’s brilliant no-hit bid with second-straight extra-innings loss to Dodgers

For a moment, he had seemed lost. The Taijuan Walker we saw pitch his way into his first All-Star Game – with a 2.50 ERA in the first half of the regular season – was missing for four weeks. Concerns over the longevity of his arm strength emerged. Many wondered how many more times the Mets could run him out there, having given up two home runs or more in each of his last four starts.

Then, he pulled off the mid-season renaissance.

Walker carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning against a dangerous Dodgers lineup, but the Mets spoiled his brilliant effort with a second-straight extra-innings loss Saturday night at Citi Field. Michael Conforto, who cranked his eighth home run of the year, was the only Mets batter to do damage against Dodgers right-hander Walker Buehler. He struck out 10 over seven innings for Los Angeles as the Amazin’s sunk to a 2-1 defeat.

“It’s definitely frustrating to lose in extra innings both nights, but we’re in both games,” Conforto said. “We’re one swing away from winning both of those games. The more we can keep ourselves in those situations – obviously we want to win by 3-4-5 runs – but when we’re in it until the end, anything can happen.”

An exhausted Mets bullpen was excellent after Walker departed. Aaron Loup, Miguel Castro, and Seth Lugo combined for 2.1 shutdown innings to help send the game to extras, but with Edwin Diaz and Jeurys Familia overworked and unavailable, bench coach Dave Jauss went to reliever Yennsy Diaz for the 10th inning. Luis Rojas was ejected for an MLB-leading fifth time this season earlier in the game.

Diaz gave up the game-winning hit to Cody Bellinger on a double to right to tarnish what should have been remembered as Walker’s special night.

“It was a tough loss again, but the guys are leaving this game with the hunger of coming back tomorrow and competing against these guys,” said Rojas. “We didn’t play sloppy today. We faced a tough pitcher, and even the relievers, they were tough. We couldn’t build anything.”

Walker allowed just two hits across 6.2 innings and struck out eight on the night – retiring 18 of his first 20 batters faced. One by one, the Dodgers walked back to the opposing dugout shaking their heads and befuddled by Walker’s signature splitter, which he used for seven swings and misses. His fastball topped out at 97.3 mph and Conforto said, “He was nasty. You could tell he was fired up and that he wanted to put on a show.”

The long ball came back to bite Walker on one of the few mistakes he made Saturday. Dodgers catcher Will Smith jumped on a slider right in his wheelhouse and drove it to the second deck in left field to break up Walker’s no-hit bid with a punishing solo home run that tied the game at 1-1. Walker has given up 11 home runs in six starts since the All-Star break, compared to six dingers allowed through 16 starts in the first half.

“I’ve been going in the right direction the past couple of weeks,” Walker said. “The results haven’t been what I wanted them to be. But body-wise, arm-wise, velo and everything, I thought my stuff has been getting better and better since the All-Star break. I feel like I’m in a really good place right now.”

Even so, his terrific outing against the Dodgers piggybacked his quality start against the Phillies last weekend to signify a turn of the tide for Walker. He put together the Mets’ longest no-hit bid since Steven Matz took a no-hitter into the eighth inning against the Padres on Aug. 14, 2016.

Walker topped his career-best hitless streak on Saturday, which was previously six innings. He lowered his season ERA to 3.75 and if he can build off his performance Saturday, the Mets’ Jacob deGrom-less rotation could look dominant again. But, as we found out in the first half and through much of the Mets season, it won’t matter how well the starters pitch if the offense can’t show up.

“The pitching staff has been great all year,” Conforto said. “Those guys have kept us in a lot of games and that’s part of the reason why we were in first place for so long. At the end of the day, we just gotta put up a few more runs. It’s nothing crazy, just a couple more big swings. We’re very capable of that and we feel like we’re getting ready to swing the bats better as we come down the stretch.”