Blue Jays Destroy Mets, Jonathon Niese

Well, that was ugly. The Mets opened interleague play in Toronto with an awful 14-5 loss to the Blue Jays.

Jonathon Niese started the bottom of the first by allowing a walk and a single. But then he struck out the Jays big boppers Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion, and it looked like Niese was back on track. Not so — J.P. Arencibia hit a bomb to left to give the Blue Jays a 3-0 lead.

Things didn’t get better in the second — somebody named Yan Gomes, appearing in just his second big league game, led off the inning with his first career home run, and a single later in the inning made it a 5-1 game.

It got worse in the third — Arencibia hit his second home run on the night, a solo job to lead off the inning. And when Rajai Davis hit a two-run homer it was suddenly 8-1.

Niese finished the inning for an unattractive line score of three innings pitched, eight runs allowed on eight hits, four of them home runs. His ERA jumped from 3.40 to 4.85. Oddly though he did have six strikeouts, so he was doing something right. Unfortunately he did many more things wrong.

The home run parade continued under the Manny Acosta regime. Davis hit his second two-run homer of the night in the fifth to make it 10-1. The always-effective Acosta let up five runs in his two innings, walking four batters. He and his now 10.53 ERA are not long for this team.

Robert Carson made his major league debut for the Mets, throwing a scoreless seventh. Catcher Rob Johnson was called on to save the bullpen and pitch the eighth. He was perfect. He’s already better than most of the pitchers on the Mets.

Scott Hairston hit a meaningless three-run homer in the eighth.

Mets lose 14-5.

On the plus side, the suckiness of this game made me not feel like I was going to miss anything when I flipped over to watch Justin Verlander’s no-hit bid, which he lost with one out in the ninth. Now there’s a guy who can pitch!