Cubs Rout Mets Ahead of All-Star Break Starlin Casto (13) blasted a three-run homer deep into the left-field stands in the seventh inning off of Jon Niese. As they floundered to a 7-0 loss to the Chicago Cubs on Sunday afternoon, the Mets offered a fresh reminder that beneath the sheen of their unexpectedly strong start exists flaws that need to be addressed and corrected. Jon Niese will head into three-day All-Star break on a sour note after being shelled for nine hits and seven runs over seven innings of work. The Cubs pounced on him early, getting five hits off him in the top of the first to score four runs. The Cubs used a more direct scoring approach in the seventh, when Starlin Casto blasted a three-run homer deep into the left-field stands. The 35-year-old right-hander Ryan Dempster, who went on the Cubs" disabled list on June 18 with back tightness, was activated before the game and pacified the Mets during an abbreviated outing. He threw only 63 pitches over five innings, allowing four hits, four walks, and no runs. Four members of the Cubs" bullpen, which started the day with a combined 4.54 earned run average, then finished the job with relative ease, as the Mets eked out just four more hits after Dempster's departure. The game ended in two hours eight minutes. Baseball's three-day recess will give the Mets and their fans a chance to reflect on the whirlwind of games that have passed and to brace themselves for the ones to come. In the first half of the season, the Mets cobbled together an up-and-down, attention-grabbing run during which the expectations of most reasonable outsiders were clearly exceeded. Even so, there were low points, losing streaks, patches of languid play and plenty of youthful lapses. Frank Francisco's late-inning adventures were an early headache and became a symbol of the bullpen's larger struggles. Defensive imprecision plagued them, too, with their play on the field reaching something of a nadir in early June during consecutive error-strewn losses in Washington. Yet the sting of each slipup never lingered long. Rather, the Mets seemed fortified after each adverse event. For this young team, occurrences of poor play have been classified as growing pains, mistakes twirled into teachable moments. Clubhouse unity has been one of the predominant themes of the year, rooted no doubt in the high proportion of homegrown players on the major league roster. The overall geniality of the group, players have said, has engendered an environment for gutsiness and accountability to prosper. Then, of course, there have been the obvious peaks, which have given the season a splash of enchanting luster. The pitching staff - led by a charismatic pair of veteran aces - has been a valuable source of consistency. Johan Santana, whose surgically repaired left shoulder put his season in doubt up until he tossed the first pitch on opening day, bestowed Citi Field one of its most memorable moments when he completed the franchise's first-ever no-hitter on June 1. R. A. Dickey's run of superb starts elevated his journeyman narrative to a national stage and earned the 37-year-old knuckleballer a place on the All-Star team. His 12 wins and 2.40 earned run average have amounted to one of the finest first halves in franchise history. And David Wright, after a 2011 season of disappointment and frustration, has leapt back into the company of baseball's elite players, spraying hits from gap to gap now with robotic regularity. Wright entered Sunday's game second in baseball with a .443 on-base percentage and third with a .352 batting average. He, too, was selected to be an All-Star, and his appearances at the plate this last week at home have drawn chants of "M-V-P" from fans.