Mets vs. Braves recap: There are more ways to lose at Turner Field than you think

The pitching matchup didn’t really sound all that favorable. Dillon Gee versus Julio Teheran. Baseball is baseball, of course, and the Braves’ lineup is bad enough—at least on paper—that it didn’t exactly seem like an insurmountable mismatch, but Teheran has been quite a bit above average over the past two seasons. Gee has not.

In five innings of work, Gee gave up five runs on eight hits, and it seemed like every one of the hits was smoked. He struck out two and didn’t walk anyone, and he made it through four innings having given up just one run on a Freddie Freeman solo home run. But the hard hits came one after another as Gee gave up four more runs in the fifth. Unlike Friday night, when the Mets’ defense did just about everything it could to not help Jon Niese, these runs against were pretty squarely on the pitcher.

Teheran held the Mets to just two one hit through his first six innings but gave up a second hit in the seventh and completely lost the strike zone after that, walking the next two batters he faced. Third baseman Alberto Callaspo then made an error on a ground ball that plated the Mets’ first run, and Teheran plunked Travis d’Arnaud with a pitch to bring home another. That was it for his night, and the Mets’ offense didn’t last much longer.

With the bases still loaded, the Mets’ third and final run of the night scored when Wilmer Flores grounded into a 6-4-3 double play, which surely increased Flores’s popularity among Mets fans. After some bullpen and bench maneuvering by both managers, it came down to pinch hitter Ruben Tejada, who is supposed to get the start at shortstop today, grounding out to end the inning. Neither bullpen gave up any more runs in the game.

In the long run, the Braves are still pretty likely to be bad. The Mets seem pretty likely to be decent. But for now, the Braves are undefeated through five games, and Turner Field is wreaking havoc on the Mets. It seems to do that no matter which twenty-five players Atlanta is trotting out there against them. This afternoon, the Mets will once again try to get out of there with just one win in the series.

SB Nation GameThreads

* Amazin' Avenue GameThread
* Other Team GameThread

Win Probability Added

(What's this?)

Big winners: none
Big losers: Dillon Gee, -20.7% WPA, Wilmer Flores, -12.7% WPA, Curtis Granderson, -12.6% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: d’Arnaud’s hit-by-pitch in the seventh, +11.2%
Teh sux0rest play: Wilmer Flores’s bases-loaded GIDP in the seventh, -16.6% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: -17.9% WPA
Total batter WPA: -32.1% WPA
GWRBI!: Eric Young Jr. (of course)