Final Score: Braves 2, Mets 1—I Ain’t No Miracle Worker

Tonight’s game was about as vintage Jacob deGrom as you can get. In the middle innings, deGrom struck out eight batters in a row, matching his career high. He is the first pitcher since Nolan Ryan to strike out eight batters in a row twice in his career. deGrom yielded just one run on an RBI single up the middle by Met killer Freddie Freeman. In all, he struck out thirteen batters over seven brilliant innings of work.

As usual, the Mets failed to give deGrom any run support, so he decided that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. After giving up a run in the top of the sixth, he led off the bottom of the inning with a solo home run to tie the game at one. That was the only run Mike Foltynewicz would allow, as he matched deGrom over seven innings.

The Mets and Braves bullpens also matched zeros to send the game to extra innings. Seth Lugo contributed two scoreless innings for the Mets and Shane Greene and Chris Martin each tossed a scoreless inning apiece, the latter working around a one-out hit by Pete Alonso in the ninth.

After hitting a batter with a pitch to lead off the tenth and allowing the pinch runner Billy Hamilton to reach third on a stolen base, Edwin Diaz bounced back to strike out both Ronald Acuna Jr. and Ozzie Albies to complete arguably his most clutch performance of the season. The Mets had scoring opportunities in both the tenth and eleventh innings and failed to capitalize.

The game dragged on into the fourteenth inning, when Mickey Callaway was forced to use Jeurys Familia for the third day in a row and the result was about what you’d expect. Familia’s command was off and the Braves took advantage. He surrendered a leadoff walk to Tyler Flowers and then a ground rule double to former Met Adeiny Hechavarria. He got Rafael Ortega to strike out swinging, but Billy Hamilton singled just past the drawn in Panik to give the Braves the lead. Familia was able to power through the inning without giving up any more runs, but the Mets went down meekly against Mark Melancon in the bottom of the fourteenth to secure the victory for the Braves.

Full recap to follow.

GameThread Roll Call

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1. MetsFan4Decades: 271
2. Gznuff: 215
3. JR and the Off-Balance Shots: 183
4. Kepler: 162
5. LouMonte7: 155
6. Knurk: 137
7. Jets Mets Devils Nets 16: 116
8. YuretRastin: 110
9. MookieTheCat: 102
10. LaRomaBella: 92