HOUSTON — Starling Marte watched a sinking changeup stay just high enough to clip the bottom of the strike zone.
The Mets’ No. 2 hitter likely thought the next pitch would do the same, and so Marte unleashed a hefty cut at a curveball that bounced long before it reached home plate.
He didn’t get any closer on the third pitch he saw, a cutter in the dirt that he couldn’t hit with a golf club.
Marte shook his head as he trudged back to the dugout in the fourth inning.
Repeatedly at the plate and ultimately in the game, the Mets came up empty.
Framber Valdez mystified the Mets’ bats with a four-hit, eight-inning masterpiece in a 4-2 loss to the Astros at Minute Maid Park on Tuesday when Buck Showalter’s offense was overmatched.
Justin Verlander had one bad inning early, which proved worse than Valdez’s one bad inning late.
The Mets (34-39) dropped their 12th game in their past 16 and will turn to Tylor Megill for Wednesday’s rubber game, trying to snap a skid of five straight without a series victory.
The Mets, who exploded for 11 runs and 14 hits a night prior, could barely make contact with anything Valdez offered. Mark Canha’s single down the first-base line with one out in the sixth qualified as significant progress: Valdez, who finished fifth in AL Cy Young voting last year and has been better this year, had retired the first 16 hitters he saw.
The faint scent of a perfect game was in the air.
It was not perfect, but for seven innings it was awfully close.
Three pitches after Canha’s single, Eduardo Escobar grounded into an inning-ending double play.
The Mets’ offense showed up against a tiring Valdez in the eighth when the attack used three of the night’s four hits to score a pair of runs.
Tommy Pham singled before Francisco Alvarez’s double, and Canha’s sinking lineout to right field became a sacrifice fly.
Escobar’s RBI single brought the tying run to the plate, but Valdez won a battle with Brandon Nimmo, who popped up.
Valdez struck out nine in eight excellent innings, consistently giving the first- and third-base umpires work: The Mets were unable to check their swings all night against nasty offspeed stuff.
Mets batters swung at 16 Valdez cutters and missed 11 times.
The Mets had a chance in the ninth, when Astros closer Ryan Pressly walked Pete Alonso with two outs. But Pham, who represented the tying run, struck out.
In Verlander’s return to Houston, where he had starred for parts of five seasons, he was outdueled by his former rotation-mate.
The Mets’ co-ace, though, did not pitch especially poorly.
A night after an encouraging turn from Max Scherzer, Verlander was charged with four runs on eight hits in seven innings.
Verlander cruised until the third, when a Corey Julks double, a Martin Maldonado single and a Jose Altuve sacrifice fly created one run before Alex Bregman created two.
The star third baseman and a close friend of Verlander’s smoked a fastball that got too much of the plate for a two-run home run to left, giving the Astros the only runs they would need — though they did more padding in the seventh.
In Verlander’s final inning, Julks reached on an infield single, took second base on a ground out and scored on a single from Altuve.
Verlander was not at his best, but he pitched well enough to win against other pitchers and lasted at least seven innings for his third time in eight starts with the Mets.
As the club plays a reliever down following Drew Smith’s sticky-stuff suspension, every out the Mets’ rotation records will be critical.
After Scherzer pitched eight innings in Monday’s win, the only Mets reliever needed a night later was Jeff Brigham, who threw a scoreless eighth.
There were small victories to take — finally connecting against Valdez; sparing the bullpen — because the biggest victory was as elusive as Valdez’s cutter.
