Cardinals snap Jeurys Familia's saves streak in win vs. Mets

NEW YORK — The baseball rocketed into the second deck in left center field, ending Adam Wainwright’s 117-pitch outing with the ninth pitch of the seventh-inning at-bat and Yoenis Cespedes’ first home run since July 5 appeared to be enough for the Mets.

But then Jeurys Familia finally blew a save — his first in the regular season since Aug. 1, 2015 — so the Mets still have not won consecutive games since July 6-7.

Yadier Molina and Kolten Wong both doubled home runs in the ninth off Familia as the Cardinals won, 5-4, on Wednesday night at Citi Field in front of 37,851.

“It’s baseball until the 27th out,” Cespedes said. “You don’t know the results. We have a lot of faith in Familia.”

Familia (2-2) had been a perfect 36 for 36 in save opportunities this season and his string of 52 consecutive regular-season saves, the third longest in Major League Baseball history, was snapped. His trouble started with a one-out, four-pitch walk to Jedd Gyorko.

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“No question about it, this is a really tough one to take,” Mets manager Terry Collins said. “When you come back against Adam Wainwright, that’s a pretty big night.”

So the Mets (53-47), who split Tuesday’s doubleheader with the Cardinals (54-47), failed to take two of three as they did in their previous series against the Marlins, another team they are battling for wild-card position.

And despite Cespedes’ heroics, the Mets still hit just 2 for 14 with runners in scoring position after entering the game with a National League-low .207 batting average in that category.

“No, we didn’t get past that even though Cespedes got a big hit,” Collins said. “We had a lot of opportunities to score some runs.”

Familia retired Matt Adams on a lineout to left before being too careful to Gyorko, who was pinch run for by Randal Grichuk.

Molina ripped Familia’s first pitch, a 96-mph fastball, to left to tie the game at 4 and, two batters later, pinch hitter Wong stroked a 97-mph fastball to left on the eighth pitch of his at-bat to score pinch runner Jeremy Hazelbaker.

“This is something we haven’t had happen for quite some time,” Collins said.

But Familia, who Collins said will not be available for today’s game against the Rockies, was not daunted after the game, instead looking at the positives of putting together such a long streak.

“Oh yeah, I was in this position before last year,” Familia said when asked about his ability to bounce back from the defeat. “I’ll get another opportunity and do my job.”

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Wainwright entered the game with a MLB-leading 0.93 ERA in July but allowed 11 hits in 6⅔ innings and had his streak of not allowing a home run in just over 67 innings snapped when Cespedes’ two-run blast gave the Mets a 4-3 lead.

Mets right-hander Logan Verrett pitched seven innings of five-hit ball, striking out seven, waking three and allowing three runs.

He might have earned the win had the Mets gotten some more timely hits.

Neil Walker snapped an 0-for-13 slump by singling home James Loney, who had doubled, for a 1-0 lead in the second. But with runners on first and second and none out, Wainwright got Michael Conforto to fly out to center and Travis d’Arnaud grounded into a double play.

In the fourth, the Mets got back-to-back infield singles by Loney and Walker with one out, but Wilmer Flores’ bouncer to third forced Loney and Conforto struck out looking at a 93-mph fastball.

Asdrubal Cabrera did the same in the fifth, watching Wainwright’s 93-mph fastball catch the corner on a 1-2 pitch with two outs and d’Arnaud on third.

Conforto failed again in the sixth, grounding out weakly to first to end the inning with runners on first and third.

The Cardinals took a 3-1 lead in the third as Wainwright drew a lead-off walk from Verrett, Matt Holliday laced a two-out double to right to score Wainwright and Aledmys Diaz, who had singled. Matt Adams followed Holliday’s double with his own run-scoring double to right.

Andrew Gross writes for The Bergen County Record, part of the USA TODAY NETWORK.