ST. LOUIS -- Sonny Gray knew it as soon as the crack of the bat echoed through Busch Stadium.
Gray immediately slumped over before Mets slugger Pete Alonso could even begin rounding the bases after blasting a key two-run homer in the fifth inning on Friday night.
The homer, Alonso’s 13th of his career against the Cardinals, ignited a four-run frame as the Mets won, 9-3.
“With Alonso, got him 0-2, and I just didn't execute,” Gray said. “I think I was probably trying to be too cute there in that one. But I called something that is not normally what I would do, maybe trying to overthink it, or do something, and it wasn't right.”
The Cardinals lost to the Mets for the fifth straight time this season after being swept in a four-game series last month in New York, and for the ninth straight time going back to April 28, 2024. It is the longest losing streak against the Mets in franchise history.
“They’ve won a lot of games for a reason,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said of the Mets. “They can hit, they can pitch. They do a lot of things well, and they did a lot of that tonight. To be quite honest, they took some really good swings off of Sonny.”
Alonso’s homer, which left the bat at 105.7 mph and travelled 417 feet over the center-field wall, marked the beginning of the end for Gray, who was pulled after Brandon Nimmo and Jesse Winker followed with singles. Nimmo eventually came around on a fielding error by first baseman Willson Contreras that extended the inning and Francisco Alvarez capped the rally with an RBI single off Chris Roycroft as the Mets batted around in the fifth to take a 6-3 lead.
“We made a mistake,” Marmol said. “You do that against a good team and they make you pay. They did exactly that.”
Gray went a season-low 4 1/3 innings and allowed a season high in nine hits and six runs (four earned). He struck out six and walked three.
“Just overall, just wasn't very good in general,” Gray said. “First inning was good, but other than that, just wasn't very good.”
Gray’s fifth-inning struggles didn’t occur in a vacuum. They can be traced to a labor-intensive second inning that started draining the right-hander’s tank early on.
A walk and two singles loaded the bases for the Mets with no outs. Gray battled back and appeared to be on the verge of getting out of it with minimal damage after inducing a pair of run-scoring groundouts with No. 9 hitter Luisangel Acuña coming to the plate.
But Gray walked Acuña and then did the same with leadoff hitter Francisco Lindor to reload the bases before ending the frame with a strikeout of Juan Soto.
The walks added to a 33-pitch inning, most of which were thrown in high-leverage situations. The three walks matched Gray’s season high -- for a game.
“You try to limit damage, not give any free passes,” Gray said. “I don't think I did either one of those. Second inning, the ball just kind of got away from me a little bit. I kind of lost feel for it, and then kind of settled down.”
Gray found his groove in the third and fourth innings, striking out four while holding the Mets off the board.
“Yeah, 30-plus pitches, he grinded through it,” Marmol said. “I felt like after that inning, he got going, though, and looked better, was able to get some punchouts, get some more swing and miss on the slider, so it was tipping in the right direction, it was just a matter of, like I said, just running out of pitches.”
Masyn Winn continued his hot hitting since being moved up to the two-hole in the Cardinals lineup. Winn had a season-high three hits, scored a run and drove in another as his average climbed to .272. It was his eighth multi-hit game of the season and third in his last four games.
Winn’s double in the eighth was his 200th career hit.
“I felt like we took some good swings off [Mets starter Clay Holmes], but again, nothing to show for it,” Marmol said. “I felt like we hit some nice, long drives all over the field, but at the end of the day they out-executed us, bottom line.”