Baltimore’s four-homer opening burst sends Mets to a 7-1 loss at Citi Field

The game was decided in the air

Baltimore did not overwhelm the Mets with endless traffic. The Orioles had only nine hits and two walks, and they also struck out 11 times. What they did do was make their biggest contact count immediately. Pete Alonso opened the scoring with a first-inning drive to left-center, a 410-foot shot that set the tone for an offense that kept lifting mistakes into the seats.

The second inning widened the gap in a hurry. Jeremiah Jackson drove one to center, a 404-foot home run that also brought home Christian Encarnacion-Strand. Then the third inning turned the game from manageable to lopsided. Encarnacion-Strand homered to left-center with Coby Mayo aboard, and Samuel Basallo followed later in the inning with a 425-foot blast to center. By then it was 6-0, and Citi Field was watching a game that had already tilted hard toward Baltimore.

That stretch put Xzavion Curry in an impossible position. His final line tells the story plainly: 3.0 innings, six hits, six earned runs, one walk, three strikeouts, four home runs allowed. The Orioles finished with 23 total bases, so this was not a matter of scraping together seeing-eye singles. It was a night when Baltimore’s offense turned a few clean swings into almost all the margin it would need.

Bassitt gave the Mets almost nothing to build on

If the Orioles’ bats made the first statement, Chris Bassitt made sure there was no rebuttal. He worked 6.2 innings, allowed five hits and one earned run, walked one and struck out six over 95 pitches. More important than the pitch count was the shape of the outing: the Mets never found extra-base damage, never made him pay with one big swing, and never forced the game into late suspense.

New York’s only run came in the fourth, when Marcus Semien singled to left to score Jared Young. It trimmed the score to 6-1, but the Mets could not stack enough offense behind it. They finished with seven hits, yet every one of them was a single. There were no doubles, no triples, no home runs, and only one walk. That combination left the lineup needing long chains of contact, and the Orioles’ staff never permitted one to develop.

The bullpen finished off what Bassitt started. Anthony Nunez, Josh Walker and Yennier Cano covered the final 2.1 innings without allowing a run, and Baltimore’s pitching staff did not let either of its two inherited runners score. That is the quieter part of a 7-1 game, but it matters. Once the Orioles built the cushion, their pitchers refused to give New York the kind of messy inning that can suddenly make a blowout feel fragile.

Our take: Baltimore’s power was real, and the Mets’ margin for error was tiny

Our take: this is the kind of Orioles win that looks straightforward on the scoreboard and more revealing in the details. Baltimore was not flawless. The Orioles struck out 11 times, drew only two walks and left seven runners on base. On another night, that profile could produce frustration. On this one, the power covered everything. Four home runs in the first three innings compressed the game into a shorter argument: if Baltimore keeps producing this much damage on contact, it can survive some empty at-bats. The area to polish is obvious, though. A lineup that relies less on the long ball than it did here would be even tougher to contain.

Encarnacion-Strand and Basallo sat at the center of it. Encarnacion-Strand went 3-for-4, scored three runs and drove in two, appearing in three of Baltimore’s scoring plays. Basallo added a 2-for-4 night with two RBI, including the towering third-inning homer and the ninth-inning single that brought Encarnacion-Strand home again. Jackson’s two-run shot mattered because it doubled the early lead, and Alonso’s first-inning homer made sure the Mets were playing from behind from the outset.

Our take: the Mets can point to some things that stabilized after the damage was done. Jefry Yan gave them 3.0 scoreless innings, and Jack Weisenburger struck out five across the final 3.0 innings while allowing just one run. But the larger lesson is hard to miss. New York pitchers recorded 11 strikeouts and still gave up seven runs because the contact they did allow was punishing: four home runs and 23 total bases. Offensively, the answer is just as plain. Seven singles, one walk and 11 runners left on base usually mean the lineup spent the night asking for too many small things to go right in sequence. Baltimore won 7-1 not by flooding the game with chances, but by owning the decisive ones.

Scoring moments

1. 1st Inning

   Alonso homered to left center (410 feet).

2. 2nd Inning

   Jackson homered to center (404 feet), Encarnacion-Strand scored.

3. 3rd Inning

   Encarnacion-Strand homered to left center (399 feet), Mayo scored.

4. 3rd Inning

   Basallo homered to center (425 feet).

5. 4th Inning

   Semien singled to left, Young scored.

6. 9th Inning

   Basallo singled to right, Encarnacion-Strand scored.