When was the last time you saw a baseball game which contained three back-to-back-to-back doubles? This was the highlight of our game tonight  which says two things. That it was the Mets who hit them, in the third, is a good indication our man RA did not have it today . And as these were followed in the bottom of the inning by a 25 second 1, 2, 3 outs by the Braves hitters this was not exactly  a game in which the result was in any doubt .

The Mets must have enjoyed blowing up their 8 game losing streak against us . Jacob de Grom, the last man standing in a ravaged rotation, reminded us what a class starter looks like. He went seven, Freddie hit him hard twice, nobody else squared him up. Our kid phenoms looked particularly lost all night, it wasn’t pretty. 101 pitches of this quality were a lesson for all of us.

Which leads us back to RA. After the three doubles in the third we were down four. Then 5 in the fourth.He was done but in no sense had he given up at any time ,  gutting it out as he always does. What he also seemed to do at an early stage was to abandon the primacy of his knuckler. There seemed to be as many fastballs in his mix which suited the Mets hitters just fine.

With Dickey out the bullpen blues hit again with Sims pitching 2 ineffective innings and getting hit hard in the process. You wonder what he made of de Grom, looking at him all night. Good old Lane Adams cheered us all up driving in two runs in the bottom of the ninth off a very wobbly Ramos. Which made the final score look better than it deserved to be. This was Jacob De Grom’s night, he dominated and controlled the game. Which is ok in the circumstances, not the end of the world, just a salutary reminder there are pitchers of whom we have not the like. But he helped set our sights, who from our motley  young arms will one day pitch like that? At least one, surely!