The New York Mets never quit against the Florida Marlins on Sunday afternoon, but they certainly kept making things more difficult for themselves in a 5-4 loss to drop two of three from their division rivals.
Jose Reyes helped get the Mets off to a fast start by leading off with a single and eventually scoring on Carlos Beltran's sacrifice fly. That lead, however, was short lived as the Marlins tied things up in the bottom of the first thanks to an RBI single from Hanley Ramirez.
Florida jumped on top in the second with a blast off the bat of Mike Stanton then added on some more with some help from the Mets porous defense. David Wright continued his struggles throwing the ball, failing to get the ball on target to first base on a dribbler by Marlins catcher Brett Hayes. Though he wasn't given an error on the play, a solid throw from Wright would have nailed Hayes. Following a sacrifice bunt, the red hot Emilio Bonifacio drove in Hayes with a single and a 3-1 Marlins lead. On the play, Angel Pagan threw the ball home even though there was no play to be made, allowing Bonifacio to advance, showing once again Pagan's lack of awaremess.
In the fourth inning the Mets continued to show their struggles in the field. First Daniel Murphy overran a foul pop down the right field line, failing to make the simple catch. Reyes followed that up on the very next pitch by allowing a double-play ball to skip through his legs. Dillon Gee was able to persevere through the lack of defense and got out of the inning unscathed.
Gee finished with three earned runs on seven hits over five innings of work. Despite being in trouble all game and without his best stuff, Gee put his team in a position to come out with the victory.
The Mets offense tried to pick up their terrible defense. In the 6th inning with runners on second and third, the struggling Jason Bay delivered a huge clutch single that cut the Marlins lead to 3-2. The very next inning Wright did one better than Bay, pulling a hanging slider over the left field stands with one man on to give New York a 4-3 lead.
Bobby Parnell came on to try and hold the lead in the eighth inning, but the first batter he faced -- Logan Morrison -- hit a bomb to straight away center field to tie the game. Stanton was up next and singled to get on before being sacrificed to second. After a pop out, the Marlins took the lead on a John Buck pinch hit double to right center field.
There would be no more comebacks out of the Mets offense. Willie Harris, Reyes and Justin Turner went down quietly against Marlins closer Leo Nunez.
New York continues to tread water as they once again find themselves below .500. As they prepare to kick off a four game series against the Cincinnati Reds on Monday, the Mets will be best served trading whatever they can before next week's trade deadline.