New look, same bad results.
The Mets premiered their City Connect uniforms Saturday and aside from looking like knockoff Colorado Rockies, they played like it, too, in a 7-4 loss to St. Louis at Citi Field.
Adrian Houser was miserable for a third time in five starts as a Met and the offense couldn’t overcome his poor outing, as they lost for the fifth time in six games to fall back to .500 (13-13).
It came against a Cardinals team that had lost five of six before beating the Mets in Queens to open the series Friday.
Trailing by three in the bottom of the ninth, the Mets loaded the bases before Francisco Lindor popped out to end it.
Houser was bad again, this time getting off to a brutal start after he’d alternated decent outings with terrible performances in his first four starts as a Met, when he was good at home and bad on the road.
On Saturday, Houser allowed five of the first six hitters to reach — and four of them scored.
The key blow was a two-run double by Paul Goldschmidt.
The Mets mounted a rally in the fifth against ex-Yankee Sonny Gray, who entered with a 1.04 ERA and dominated them through the first four innings.
But down 6-0, Tyrone Taylor reached on an error by Nolan Arenado at third and Brett Baty walked to start the inning and after a wild pitch moved the runners up, Brandon Nimmo drove them both in and Pete Alonso followed two batters later with his 200th career homer to make it 6-4.
The offense stalled the rest of the way, unable to overcome the hole created in the first by Houser.
The right-hander gave up a leadoff double to Brendan Donovan, which skipped off a diving Alonso’s glove and into right field.
Willson Contreras followed with a flare single to right to put runners on the corners.
Houser got Lars Nootbar to foul out, but Arenado’s single to right — another bloop — scored Donovan for the game’s first run.
Goldschmidt then drilled a two-run double to left-center to make it 3-0.
A two-out RBI single by Masyn Winn increased the lead to 4-0 before Houser’s 32-pitch inning ended.
The Mets got the leadoff hitter on in each of the first two innings, but couldn’t score Nimmo in the first or DJ Stewart in the second.
The Cardinals added to their lead in the third, with a two-out RBI double by Nolan Gorman.
Houser allowed another run in the third and one more in the fifth, when he was removed with runners on the corners and one out and Josh Walker promptly balked in Goldschmidt to give St. Louis a 6-0 lead.
The latest poor performance bumped Houser’s ERA to a whopping 8.37.
The Mets broke through against Gray in the bottom of the fifth thanks to Nimmo’s two-run single.
Lindor struck out — one of his four on the day — before Alonso homered to right-center to make it 6-4.
Alonso’s milestone homer came in his 710th game, making the first baseman the fourth-fastest to ever reach the milestone.
The Cardinals tacked on another run on a Donovan sacrifice fly in the eighth.
Taylor and Mark Vientos singled with one out in the bottom of the ninth, but Tomas Nido popped out and after Nimmo walked, Lindor came up short.
