Mets Lose to Nationals

Dillon Gee has been so good for the Mets over the past few months. Not so much on Tuesday night as the Nationals are now winners of the first two games of the four-game set at Citi Field.

The Nationals simply beat up on Gee early. Jayson Werth hit a laser into the Party City Deck in the first inning to give the Nationals an early 1-0 lead.

Adam LaRoche followed suit in the second, leading off with a homer to make it 2-0.

Denard Span led off the third with a double and Werth once again hit a rocket to left, this time not high enough for a home run, but hard enough to hit off the wall. It went for a double and a 3-0 Nationals lead.

The Mets got on the board in the fourth when Daniel Murphy led off with a ground rule double, went to third on an out and came around on a Justin Turner single to make it 3-1.

Werth continued to bombard Gee in the sixth, leading off with another double. A single by Ian Desmond moved him to third. Desmond was thrown out trying to steal second for the first out. LaRoche hit a grounder that bounced off of Gee’s glove over to Omar Quintanilla, who was playing in. Werth was not breaking on contact, so he held as LaRoche was thrown out. It didn’t matter because Wilson Ramos singled to drive in Werth to extend the lead to 4-1.

But the Mets would not go away easily, as they usually do. Lucas Duda led off the sixth with a single. Turner followed with a double, and when Matt den Dekker singled, suddenly the Nationals lead was down to just a run, 4-3.

Gee lasted 6.1 innings, settling down after his rough start. But still, he allowed four runs on nine hits, with five strikeouts and no walks.

Former Met Scott Hairston put the game out of reach in the ninth with a two-run home run off of Tim Byrdak to make it a 6-3 game.

And that was the final score. Another loss for the sinking Mets, who have dropped seven of their last nine games.