Pete Alonso homered twice, but David Peterson's struggles leaked into the bullpen as the Mets gave up 16 hits to fall 10-3 to the Baltimore Orioles on Tuesday night.
The Mets' offense got off to a great start Tuesday in Baltimore. Francisco Lindor got on the bases first with a one-out walk before Pete Alonso crushed a 408-foot bomb off Bruce Zimmermann to left to put them up 2-0 early.
Dom Smith added another hit on a two-out single to get the Mets' dugout up and energized.
But it didn't take long for the Orioles to tie things up by connecting on three straight hits off of David Peterson to start the inning. After Pedro Severino singled to center, Maikel Franco and Pat Valaika hit back-to-back doubles with no outs on the board to tie things up at 2-2 -- Valaika collected the 2 RBI.
After picking up a groundout in the next at-bat, Peterson gave up his third double of the inning to Cedric Mullins with Valaika already on second to hand Baltimore the 3-2 lead.
Peterson finished the rough inning with back-to-back strikeouts to earn himself some redemption.
The lefty gave up his fourth double of the game to Freddy Galvis to set up the Orioles with one out in the third. Severino reached on an infield single that went off Jonathan Villar's glove to put runners on the corners for Valaika.
Valaika ripped his second double -- and Peterson's fifth allowed on the night -- just over Smith's outstretched hand in left to bring Galvis in from third and extend Baltimore's lead to 4-2.
Peterson exited after just 2.2 innings and 69 pitches, finishing his night to the tune of four earned runs off eight hits and one walk, while striking out four.
The Orioles tacked on another run in the bottom of the fourth on a Trey Mancini infield single off Robert Gsellman that brought home Mullins -- who doubled to start off the inning -- from second, making it a 5-2 game.
Fast forward another inning and the Orioles broke the game wide open on a three-run homer from Franco to make it an 8-2 game.
Baltimore brought in yet another run in the sixth to make it nine unanswered. After Anthony Santander hit the seventh double of the game, Ryan Mountcastle hit an RBI single to center to put the Orioles up 9-2.
They added another run in the bottom of the eighth on a solo homer by Santander to reach double-digits in a 10-2 ball game.
Alonso hit his second home run in the game in the final inning, but it was too little, too late, as the Orioles secured the 10-3 win off a whopping 16 hits.
Only Alonso (twice), Smith and James McCann picked up hits in this one, while Peterson picked up his fifth loss of the season.
The Braves defeated the Phillies on Tuesday to pull within 2.5 games of the Mets.
The Mets and Orioles finish off their two-game series on Wednesday at 7:05 p.m as the Mets will try for a 5-4 road trip, with Taijuan Walker and Matt Harvey taking the mound.
(Photo: Getty)