Snell own worst enemy, Escobar hits for cycle as Mets down Padres

As Padres manager Bob Melvin laid out the expectations as Blake Snell settled back into the Padres’ rotation, a caveat was implied all along.

The 2018 AL Cy Young winner would have no restrictions.

At least not from Melvin.

Making his fourth start of the season, Snell labored through a 43-pitch first inning and was lifted in the fifth of an 11-5 loss to the Mets, owners of the NL’s best record, the best hitting team in the majors and the most patient.

Whatever.

They weren’t the problem.

“It’s not them, it’s me,” Snell said after Monday’s loss snapped the Padres’ three-game winning streak. “I just got to put the ball in a zone, dominate the zone and by doing that they’ve got to swing and when they swing at what I want them to swing at, I’m pretty confident with whatever lineup is up to bat I’m going to win.”

Just didn’t happen in the first inning.

Snell walked all three of his batters after recording the second out of the game. Eduardo Escobar provided the biggest hit in the inning, a two-run single that got him started on the first cycle in Petco Park history. He doubled off Snell in the fourth, homered off Craig Stammen in the eighth and tripled off Tim Hill during a four-run ninth, pleasing a Mets-heavy crowd of 34,858 at Petco Park.

The latter hit answered Luke Voit’s three-run homer to left-center, briefly turning Monday’s contest into a two-run game.

Slowed by an adductor strain, Snell was coming off his first quality start of the season, but three straight walks in the first inning forced Melvin to warm up Nabil Crismatt in a hurry and potentially stress a bullpen already down some arms after Sunday’s extra-inning affair in Milwaukee.

“I want to give them a rest for the whole night,” Snell said. “That’s the goal every game, so when I go out there in the first inning and it’s 40 pitches, and it’s like they’re warming up. … It’s like, I can’t do this to those guys. Obviously, in the back of my mind, I’m like whatever you do, throw it over the plate, find a way out of this inning so I can keep going and try to just let them come in the six, seventh, eighth, ninth, not the first, second, third, fourth, or even fifth.

“So it was tough with how I started.”

That Melvin never called on Crismatt was at least a silver lining as Snell went on to pitch four-plus innings despite trailing 3-0 after the first on J.D. Davis’ bases-loaded walk and Escobar’s two-run single.

Escobar added a double in the fourth and scored on Brandon Nimmo’s single to center, and Manny Machado’s fifth-inning throwing error added an unearned run to Snell’s line as Mark Canha followed what should have been a harmless ground ball from Pete Alonso with a double down the third-base line, chasing Snell from the game.

Rookie Steven Wilson replaced Snell and fetched two outs immediately when Canha was thrown out trying to advance to third on Davis’ sacrifice fly to center. Escobar then popped out to shortstop to end the fifth with the Mets leading 5-1.

Snell threw just 59 of his 95 pitches for strikes, walked three batters — all in the first inning — and allowed five runs (four earned) on seven hits in four-plus innings. He struck out four.

“The first inning took a lot out of him,” Melvin said. “They made him throw a lot of pitches. They’re a team that can draw some walks, make you throw a lot of pitches, and that’s what happened in the first. Eventually, he got out of it and was OK the next couple of innings, but it takes a lot out of you when you throw 40 pitches in one inning.

“He just never got to a point where he could get too deep in the game.”

Wilson went on to pitch two more innings to spare the bullpen a bit, but Escobar added a two-run homer off Stammen (1 1/3 IP, 4 ER) after the Padres had cut the Mets’ lead to 5-2 on Nomar Mazara’s seventh-inning double and a two-run triple off Hill (2/3 IP, 2 ER) in the ninth.

Mets right-hander Carlos Carrasco struck out 10, did not walk a batter and allowed two runs on five hits, two from Jurickson Profar en route to his fourth three-hit game of the season and third multi-hit effort in his last four games.

Profar’s leadoff double to start the game was stranded, but he cashed in Jorge Alfaro’s leadoff double in the third with a single to left, his fifth RBI in his last four games. Profar added a third hit in the eighth, followed by Jake Cronenworth’s walk and Voit’s home run to left-center off reliever Drew Smith, his fifth of the season.