Cardinals 2, Mets 1: Another extra-inning game with no offense, another loss

Apr 1, 2026; St. Louis, Missouri, USA; New York Mets left fielder Juan Soto (22) flips his bat after striking out against the St. Louis Cardinals during the fourth inning at Busch Stadium.

Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-Imagn Images | Jeff Curry-Imagn Images Six games in, and it’s safe to say that—outside of the offensive outburst on opening day—the bats have gotten off to a slow start for the Mets. They haven’t scored more than four runs in a game since that first one, and numerous games have gone into extra innings because the Mets couldn’t bring enough runs home to win in regulation despite the pitching staff holding the opposing offense at bay. Well, we got another one of those games today—and this was perhaps the most frustrating of them all, as the Mets failed twice to score in extra innings and fell to the Cardinals 2-1 to lose the series.

Today’s game started an hour late due to rain, but the Mets’ bats did not seem to get the memo about the new start time. Indeed, after failing to score at all in last night’s game, the offense once again looked helpless against Cardinals starter Matthew Liberatore, who retired the first fourteen batters of the game before Mark Vientos broke up the perfect game with a two-out double in the fifth. Alas, through five innings the Mets were held scoreless, making it seventeen straight innings without a run dating back to Monday night.

Thankfully, the Amazins had their top starter on the mound, as Freddy Peralta suited up for his second start of the season and matched Liberatore in putting up zeroes. The biggest threat against him came in the bottom of the fifth when the Cardinals got runners on second and third with just one out, but a strikeout and groundout kept the game scoreless. Francisco Lindor got on base in the top of the sixth thanks to a one-out error, but was immediately picked off (which counted as the second mental error of the day for Lindor, who also forgot how many outs there were and gave up a potential double play earlier).