ARLINGTON — The streak ends at seven. The Mets have to hope that this seven-game winning streak proves to be luckier than the last one.
In the series finale against the Texas Rangers, the Amazins battled hard and took a lead in the sixth but couldn’t hang on to it, falling 5-3 on Wednesday night at Globe Life Field.
Drew Smith (1-1), who grew up watching the Rangers across the street at the old ballpark, gave up the go-ahead home run in the top of the seventh. He was nearly out of the inning with two outs before he walked Corey Seager and gave up a two-run homer to Leody Tavares.
Right-handed relievers Jose Ureña (3-5) and Kirby Yates (11 saves) locked it down for Texas (34-40), blanking the Mets over the final two innings.
Left-hander Sean Manaea had an erratic start to his outing, needing 36 pitches to make it through the first inning. He got the first two outs before issuing three straight walks and plunking Wyatt Langford to give up the first run. From there, he settled in, retiring the side in order in the second, third, fourth and fifth innings.
Manaea ran into trouble once again in the sixth.
Pete Alonso hit his 16th homer of the season in the top of the sixth off left-hander Andrew Heaney, taking the starter 427 feet off the batter’s eye for a two-run shot to break a 1-1 tie, putting the Mets up 3-1 in the sixth, but the Rangers came right back to tie the game in the bottom of the inning.
With one out and one on, Josh Smith pulled the ball deep to the right field corner to drive in Robbie Grossman, cutting the Mets’ lead to just one run. The Mets went to the bullpen for right-hander Sean Reid-Foley, who gave up an RBI single to Langford. Mark Vientos dove to try to stop the ball from getting through the gap, much to no avail. Smith scored from second, tying the game at 3-3.
Reid-Foley got lucky later in the inning. After walking Nathaniel Lowe to put two on with two out, catcher Jonah Heim laced one to right field. It appeared to be a homer run, which would have put the Rangers on top by a 6-3 margin, but it just barely went foul.
Heim struck out to end the inning with the game tied.
All three runs were charged to Manaea, who went 5 2/3 innings and struck out six.
Heaney was charged with three earned runs on four hits over six innings, with two walks and nine strikeouts.
The Mets (35-38) previously won seven in a row in April, but then they collapsed. They followed it up by losing their next three games in a stretch that saw them go 11-24 in 35 games. Since then, the Mets have gone 13-4 to right the ship.
This time, the Mets have to stay upright.
