But down 6-0, Tyrone Taylor reached on an error by Nolan Arenado at third and Brett Baty walked to start the inning and after a wild pitch moved the runners up, Brandon Nimmo drove them both in and Pete Alonso followed two batters later with his 200th career homer to make it 6-4 .

Houser allowed four runs in the opening inning on the way to another ugly outing: 4 1/3 innings, nine hits, six runs. His ERA through five starts is 8.37, by far the worst among the Mets' otherwise adequate starting pitchers.

Adrian Houser gave up four runs in less than five innings of work, as the Mets could not climb out of the early hole in their 7-4 loss to the Cardinals on Saturday afternoon.

Alonso’s historic homer was not enough for the Mets to overcome the deficit created by Adrian Houser in his second poor outing in a row.