Even on a night when the Mets fought back twice — including against Seattle ace Luis Castillo — they still came up short.
They overcame one three-run deficit and then a four-run hole, but Adam Ottavino gave up a leadoff homer to J.P. Crawford in the top of the ninth to hand the Mariners an 8-7 win at Citi Field on Saturday night.
Then Daniel Vogelbach singled to left-center and inexplicably tried to get to second and was thrown out to lead off the bottom of the inning.
DJ Stewart singled, but pinch-hitter Brett Baty popped out and Francisco Alvarez, also pinch-hitting, grounded out to end it.
It was an ugly end to another rough night in Queens, after they fought back from an early deficit against Castillo and erased another hole with Jeff McNeil’s RBI triple that scored Francisco Lindor in the eighth.
It wasn’t enough to offset another rough start for David Peterson.
The lefty was coming off his best start of the season, when he allowed just one run in seven innings against the Angels. Asked before the game if that was a good sign for Peterson, Buck Showalter said, “Not necessarily.”
“It could be,” the manager said. “It was a reminder of what he can do. But can you do it?”
He wasn’t unable to duplicate that success against the surging Mariners, giving up four runs in four-plus innings.
Seattle teed off on Peterson for much of his outing.
He gave up a pair of hard-hit balls to Crawford and Julio Rodriguez in the first but didn’t allow a run.
Teoscar Hernandez hammered a leadoff homer in the second, the third ball hit over 100 mph by the Mariners in the first four batters of the game.
Rodriguez also crushed an RBI triple to center — this one 107 mph — in the third, and Hernandez added a run-scoring single later in the inning to make it 3-0.
But the Mets woke up against Castillo in the bottom of the fourth, with Pete Alonso leading off with a scorching, 113 mph single to left.
Castillo then hit Vogelbach with a pitch before the sizzling-hot Stewart blasted a three-run homer to center to tie the game.
It was Stewart’s ninth home run in his past 15 games.
But Seattle went up on Peterson and the Mets again in the fifth.
Peterson drilled Crawford with a pitch to open the inning and was pulled for Grant Hartwig, just recalled from Triple-A Syracuse.
Hartwig gave up a single to Eugenio Suarez to send Crawford to third and Crawford scored on a sacrifice fly by Hernandez.
Peterson has had a rocky season, bouncing around from the rotation, to the minors, to the bullpen and back into the Mets’ rotation.
With Kodai Senga and Jose Quintana the only guaranteed spots in next year’s Mets rotation, Peterson will almost certainly have another shot at starting, along with Sunday’s starter, Tylor Megill and perhaps Jose Butto — just recalled from Syracuse — and top prospect Mike Vasil.
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