As Dominic Smith converged with Amed Rosario on Pablo Sandoval’s pop-up in the 10th inning Friday night, the Mets left fielder’s thoughts turned to his collision last season with the shortstop that had cost their team a game, against the Giants.
This time there would be no collision. Smith took his eye off the ball in order to gauge Rosario’s whereabouts and dropped it. The Giants’ Alex Dickerson was full steam ahead to home plate with the winning run in a 1-0 loss for the Mets at Oracle Park.
“The ball went up and I had a good read on it, a good beat,” Smith said following the Mets’ second straight extra-inning loss. “In a second, I got a little scared because last year we collided. I just took my eye off the ball because of what happened and ended up dropping it.”
Said Rosario: “I got a good jump on it and started to go back, and once Dom called me off, I backed off.”
Jacob Rhame — back from a one-game suspension he served Thursday for throwing behind the Phillies’ Rhys Hoskins in April — was hit with the loss after walking Dickerson to begin the inning. Unavailable were Seth Lugo, Jeurys Familia, Robert Gsellman and Justin Wilson because of recent usage. Rhame had escaped trouble in the ninth by striking out Joe Panik after walking two batters in the inning.
Wasted was a dominant performance by Jacob deGrom, who resembled the unfortunate ace who pitched to a 1.70 ERA last season but won only nine games.
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