SAN DIEGO — Just two days ahead of the trade deadline, it’s become abundantly clear the Mets’ pitching situation is unsustainable.

Sean Manaea lobbied for another inning after throwing five on Tuesday night at Petco Park, coming out of the game with it tied. Jose Butto imploded, giving up the go-ahead run in the bottom of the sixth and getting charged with four more in the seventh in the Mets’ 7-1 loss to the Padres. They dropped the series, and lost Juan Soto in the fourth inning when the star slugger fouled a ball off of his right foot, leaving with a contusion.

X-rays were negative for any breaks or fractures, and Soto is considered day-to-day.

“It was a tough moment, I was just trying to calm it down and see if [the pain] went away,” Soto said. “When I swung, I tried to run and tried to push, but couldn’t do it.”

Soto is confident that the injury won’t sideline him for any significant period of time, though the Mets aren’t ready to say that he will play in Wednesday’s series finale. More imaging will be done.

Manaea retired the final 12 hitters he faced to go five innings. After the fifth, he motioned to manager Carlos Mendoza for one more, but after 86 pitches, the manager wasn’t going to let him go back out. The Mets are still trying to lengthen out the lefty after he missed nearly the entire first half of the season with an oblique strain on his right side and a loose body in his left elbow.

“We’re not there yet with him,” said manager Carlos Mendoza. “He threw 82 last time, but he was a lot better with the way the ball was coming out with that extra day this time around. The changeup was in play today. So overall, he looked really good.”

In only his fourth start of the season, Manaea held the Padres to one run on three hits, and struck out four without issuing a walk. He threw mostly fastballs and sweepers, but got good swings on his changeup as well.

No matter what he threw, he wasn’t going to get another inning.

“I think I’m right there,” Manaea said. “We had a pitch count limit and stuff, nothing I could really do.”

Butto (3-2) took over for Manaea in the sixth, surrendering a run to give the Padres back the lead. Fernando Tatis Jr. walked to lead off the inning, but was thrown out trying to steal second. Still, the right-hander struggled with command, giving up a single to the next hitter, Luis Arraez, and a one-out triple to Jackson Merrill.

With Starling Marte in right field for only the fourth time this season, Merrill lined a 95 mph sinker over the head of Pete Alonso at first base and into right field, where Marte was already running toward the line to field it. The ball rolled into the corner giving Arraez plenty of time to come home.

Butto went on to give up two more runs in the bottom of the seventh, issuing back-to-back singles to the first two hitters before allowing a two-run double to Elias Diaz, the Padres’ No. 9 hitter who had the walk-off hit one night prior.

“He got two outs, then an unlucky chopper that went over Pete’s head and they take the lead,” Mendoza said. “Then he just got ahead on Iglesias, and then left a pitch up, a breaking ball. We know Iggy, he’s going to put the ball in play, and same thing with Diaz. Those guys, especially when you are ahead, you’ve got to make them chase, or try to get the sinker to get a ground ball. He wasn’t able to do that today.”

It wasn’t much better after he exited with two out and two on. Manny Machado teed off on right-hander Chris Devenski for a three-run shot to put San Diego ahead 7-1. The Mets went down in order against former Yankees reliever Ron Marinaccio in the eighth.

Rookie right-hander Ryan Bergert shut the Mets out over four innings. The Mets pushed their one run across against right-hander Jeremiah Estrada, but four other relievers held them scoreless. San Diego’s pitching staff has mostly neutralized the top of the order over the last few nights, and two of the Mets’ top four, Alonso and Francisco Lindor, have been struggling on this road trip.

“They’re elite,” Mendoza said of the Padres bullpen. “Once they get the lead after five, you know it’s going to be a battle. They’ve got a lot of different guys — righties, lefties with a lot of different pitch shapes and angles. They can attack in a lot of different ways. It’s not a secret around the league that that’s a pretty good bullpen there, and we’ve seen it for the past couple of nights.”

The Mets (62-46) are looking to continue upgrading the bullpen before Thursday’s 6 p.m. ET trade deadline, but they’ve also looked into bringing in a more potent center field bat. This San Diego (59-49) is a good test of the team’s strengths, but so far it’s also exposed some weaknesses.

https://www.nydailynews.com/2025/07/30/mets-padres-manaea-jose-butto-juan-soto-trade-deadline/