Final Score: Braves 9, Mets 5—Atlanta Demoralizes the Mets Again

After a heartbreaking 14-inning loss to open the series on Friday, the Mets once again lost a crucial game against the Atlanta Braves. They went down to their division rivals 9-5 and lost more ground in the wild card race in the process.

Zack Wheeler got the start for the Mets, and it was apparent early on that he did not have it. Control was a consistent struggle for him in this start, as was the case in the second inning when he walked the first two batters to leadoff the inning. Both of those runners would come around to score on a Francisco Cervelli double. In the following inning he struggled to simply keep the ball in the park, as he gave up solo homers to both Ozzie Albies and Josh Donaldson, giving the Braves an early 4-0 lead. To the Mets’ credit, they did not back down in the face of this deficit. They got on the board in the bottom of the third thanks to an RBI fielder’s choice off the bat of Joe Panik, and then they did their real damage in the bottom of the fifth. They scored their first run of the inning off an RBI single off the bat of Amed Rosario, and then following Panik reaching base on another single, Pete Alonso cranked a three-run homer (his 41st of the season, tying a single-season Mets club record) to put the Mets in front 5-4.

Alas, the lead was short-lived. Wheeler came out for one more inning in the top of the sixth, and he immediately surrendered the lead thanks to an RBI single off the bat of Rafael Ortega (which scored Francisco Cervelli, who made it to second thanks to an error from Todd Frazier at third). The teams remained scoreless until the top of the eighth, when Brad Brach surrendered three straight two-out singles—the last coming off the bat of Ronald Acuna—to score two runs (it would have only been one were it not for an inexcusable misplay by J.D. Davis in left field, who lackadaisacally tossed the ball back into the infield and allowed the speedy Billy Hamilton to race home). The Braves were not content to settle for a two-run lead, as they added two insurance runs in the following inning thanks to both a solo bomb from Freddie Freeman and an RBI double from Francisco Cervelli (to add injury to insult, Edwin Diaz began the inning but left in the middle of it due to some unclear ailment). The Mets did not have another comeback in them after their earlier one, and they were defeated for the second straight night.

Full recap to follow.

GameThread Roll Call

Nice job by Gznuff; your effort in the GameThread embiggens us all.

1. Gznuff: 195
2. MetsFan4Decades: 153
3. Kepler: 91
4. JR and the Off-Balance Shots: 72
5. MookieTheCat: 67
6. longlivethemets: 64
7. deegie: 62
8. John Oldnrude: 62
9. YuretRastin: 51
10. Mozballs: 41