CHICAGO — What should have been a feel-good performance and nice segue into the Subway Series for the Mets turned into something of a demoralizing win Sunday night.
Edwin Diaz was ejected upon entering for the bottom of the ninth inning at Wrigley Field after umpires inspected his right hand and deemed him in violation of MLB’s rules on sticky substances.
Drew Smith and Jake Diekman were summoned to get the final three outs of the Mets’ 5-2 victory over the Cubs, but Diaz now faces a 10-game suspension — during which the team can’t replace him on the roster — for the sticky substance ejection.
“We’ll pay the price, but we’ll use this as a teaching moment,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “But guys will find a way to get through it.”
Diaz said he used the same combination of sweat, rosin and dirt that he usually employs on the mound to get a better grip on the ball. He said he was informed by umpiring crew chief Vic Carapazza that the amount of substance on his right hand was in excess, and by rule he was ejected.
“I understood, but at the end of the day I was using sweat, rosin and I put my hand on the dirt,” Diaz said.
“It’s tough, because I will let my teammates down for 10 games. That sucks, because coming back from the [injured list], I have been good to help this team to win and now being out 10 more days really sucks.”
The Mets had two pitchers — Max Scherzer and Smith — suspended last year for violating the sticky substance rule.
Diaz can appeal his suspension, but will face a losing battle given that the judge and jury will be MLB officials using the report from Carapazza and his crew as the overriding evidence.
“We have been through a lot this year and we will find a way to get through it,” Mendoza said.
Diaz said he believes the umpires were under the assumption he was using an illegal substance. The right-hander offered to let them smell his hand and conduct other testing, but said by that point a decision had already been reached. But Mendoza said Carapazza told him the issue was the combination of rosin, sweat and dirt that was “a little too much.”
Mendoza said he never checks hands so was in no position to say one way or another if Diaz was in excess with his application of the mixture.
Smith was thrust into the game on short notice and after getting two outs and allowing a hit was replaced out of fears he would injure himself. Diekman recorded the final out.
“I was a little stiff and had trouble warming up a little bit,” Smith said. “I have been throwing a lot this week … I probably could have taken more time out there to warm up to be completely honest.”
In a test of guts, Luis Severino prevailed and helped the Mets win the series.
Severino’s six shutout innings were a marked improvement from his Tuesday outing in Texas in which he surrendered six earned runs. On this night the Mets received homers from Francisco Lindor, Brandon Nimmo and Mark Vientos in winning a fourth straight series and improving to 13-6 in June.
All told, Severino struck out 10 — his first time this season reaching double digits — and allowed three hits without walking a batter over 102 pitches. Severino appeared on fumes in the sixth, but rallied to strike out Cody Bellinger in a 12-pitch at-bat before retiring Seiya Suzuki for the final out with two runners aboard.
Lindor and Nimmo went back-to-back with homers in the third against Javier Assad that gave the Mets a 3-0 lead. After Harrison Bader’s double in the inning, Lindor worked the count full and lofted a fly ball to left that kept carrying into the bleachers. Nimmo followed with a homer into the same area. It marked the third this season the Mets hit back-to-back homers. Nimmo’s homer was his fourth in his last six games and gave him 11 for the season. Lindor’s homer was his 13th — leaving him three behind Pete Alonso for the team lead.
Bader’s double in the fifth — almost a carbon copy of the grounder he sent along the third-base line in his previous at-bat — helped the Mets extend their lead to 4-0 in the fifth. Lindor was hit by a pitch, and following a double steal, Nimmo walked to load the bases before J.D. Martinez’s groundout brought in the run.
The Cubs struck against Dedniel Nunez in the seventh. After Ian Happ’s leadoff single, Christopher Morel hit a 420-foot homer to center that sliced the Mets’ lead to 4-2.
Vientos countered with a 451-foot bomb to center field in the eighth that extended the Mets’ lead to 5-2.
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