With apologies to Brandon Gaudin, the only thing better than watching Larry “Chipper” Jones hit walk-off homers against the Mets may be listening to he and his former teammates celebrate one.
Ozzie Albies strode to the plate with two outs in the bottom of the tenth, hitless in four previous trips. But the Braves’ second baseman dropped the barrel of the bat on a 1-0 cutter from Tommy Hunter and launched it 408 feet into the Chophouse to complete a three-game sweep of the Mets.
The Braves trailed by at least three runs in each game of this series and rallied to win all three games. This was less about the Mets “Metting” and more about the Braves simply being the better team. Top to bottom, the Atlanta nine are better and deeper than the New York nine, and it isn’t particularly close. Turns out $430 million doesn’t buy you what you might think.
Starters struggle
That said, nobody had a 13-10 final score in mind before this one began. It would have been more likely that the strikeout totals would have been 13 for Spencer Strider and 10 for Justin Verlander than what happened at Truist Park Thursday night. Strider struck out eight in four innings, and Verlander was done after three innings on this night.
Strider struck out two of the first three hitters he faced to open the game, including Jeff McNeill, which I figured was a good sign. When Austin Riley hit a two-run shot into the right-field stands in the bottom half and the Braves tacked on a third run, I was ready to turn the game off and enjoy the evening with my family. (Who am I kidding? I enjoyed the evening with my family, and they enjoyed watching the game with me – at least parts of it.)
By the middle of the fourth, the Mets had an 8-5 lead, and I wonder if everyone was as confounded as I was. A.J. Smith-Shawver, who Braves Journal editor-in-chief Ryan Cauthron loves to call ASS, is set to make his first MLB start on Friday against the Gnats, but it was Strider and Verlander who were ass on this night.
Thankfully, the Braves’ offense came to play. Trailing 9-5, Marcell Ohzuna homered in the fifth. Eddie Rosario added a run-scoring single in the sixth to cut the lead to 10-7. Former Mets catcher Travis d’Arnaud hit a two-run blast in the bottom of the eighth to cut the deficit to 10-9.
Our guy Jesse Chavez worked around some ninth inning trouble (that’s right, Jesse is working in late-inning, high-leverage situations at 39 years old) setting the stage for a rally.
OHzuna worked the count full to lead-off the ninth but was called out on a horrendous call by plate umpire Clint Vondrak. Yours truly lost his ever-loving mind (this is the part of the game when my family enjoys watching with me less), and the frustration was compounded when the NL’s starting All-Star shortstop, Orlando Arcia, hammered a 414-foot blast to left field to tie the game. Has anyone been more impressive than Arcia this season?
Raisel Iglesias worked a perfect 10th inning, setting the stage for the offense in the bottom of the frame. Riley, who had squared up everything thrown at him in going 4-for-5, popped out to third. d’Arnaud walked and Rosario flew out to left to bring Albies to the plate. The rest, as they say, is history. Ozzie took ball one, and when Hunter left that 91 mph cutter middle-in, he pounded it…just like the Braves did on so many balls in this game.
There’s nothing better than beating the Mets – even if they are a fourth place team! Their own media outlets concede that this isn’t really a rivalry at the moment, because a rivalry infers that either team can win the game. The Braves are simply better, and their 38-24 is proof, as is this amazing stat.
The Braves stand 3.5 games clear of the second place Marlins, 8 ahead of the Filthies, 8.5 clear of the Mets, and 12.5 ahead of the Gnats, who come to town this evening. Josiah Gray (4-5, 3.09) will square off against Smith-Shover (Smith-Shawver’s other emerging nick-name, 0-0, 0.00) at 7:20 ET/6:20 CT at Truist Park.
Nice job, Christian.
Buck Showalter recently called these Mets “snakebit,” which feels about right. Their team is listless, like ours was a week or two ago; just about everyone in the lineup is performing worse than expected. That was commonplace in the Wilpon era, when their owner and his son presided over gross mismanagement of player injury and pooh-poohed advanced analytics, leading numerous players to wilt in Queens yet blossom immediately after leaving New York. (Daniel Murphy… Justin Turner… Andres Gimenez… heck, even Jeff Kent!)
This is a nice piece on how tragic it is to watch the shell of what Noah Syndergaard has become, and it is completely fair to wonder whether he and Matt Harvey might have had fuller, better careers if they had come up in a different organization.
I have to imagine that even in the Cohen and Eppler era, the organization hasn’t had a chance to invest in the kind of coaching and personnel resources in other winning organizations, from Tampa Bay to Houston to Los Angeles, that have resulted in players on those teams being placed in the best position to succeed and outperforming expectations.
The Mets have a heck of a lot of really good players. Why are they all worse than they should be, all at the same time? I don’t think it’s Buck Showalter. The Mets team last year was more serious, professional, and scary than any Mets team in more than a decade; they didn’t beat themselves and they played exceptionally, and it seemed like he helped turn their culture around.
Then again, he also has a habit of wearing out his welcome and burning his players out a bit with the severity of his intensity. He is absolutely on the managerial hotseat; no team this expensive and this disappointing can afford not to think about firing their manager.
Still, I don’t think Buck explains what’s gone wrong. I think it’s organization-wide, and I absolutely think it could be the case that their training and coaching staff, as a whole, are worse than the training and coaching staff in other organizations.
They do look listless, but their signings during the off-season only replaced players, they didn’t really improve anywhere. As I think about their lineup and the Braves’ lineup, I can’t think of one place in the order where I’d prefer a Met over who we put on the field – at least right now. Lindor at his best, perhaps, but that’s about it.
I wouldn’t mind having Nimmo in LF but he is too expensive, I guess.
As I’ve said more times than “One more Bourbon, please,” you’re never as good as you look when you’re playing well, or as bad as you look when you’re playing badly. But look: “Listless” teams don’t score 10 runs against good teams very often. Their problem isn’t listlessness or Buck or a Lindor slump… It’s a combination of some bad luck and the ridiculous decision to invest $95 million per year in two guys who raise expectations without being nearly as good as the guys they replaced. The Mets aren’t a bad team, but they are a ridiculously constructed team for the money. I still think they’ll win around 90 games…. But so will the DBacks.
I personally think Buck has helped them and, like the Diamondbacks, are a bit of a throwback in that they are annoying, foul off pitches, and put the ball in play. There will be a move this way without the shift, even when the metrics dictate otherwise.
Thanks, Christian.
And a large time was had by all (at least on our end of it).
Indeed!
Is there any concern about Strider? I heard Moylan, I think, say that some of his fastballs topped out at 94.
I wonder the same thing, Timo, and I’ve heard him say elsewhere the high velocity is there when he needs it. I’d say he needs it all the time! Holding back is not helpful…just my two cents.
His velocity was down a little bit but most fastballs were 95-96. It was worse after the 2nd inning.
I contend that the Braves are just better than the Mets. This tweet from Mark Bowman adds validity to my contention. The pop in or lineup is phenomenal!
Maybe I’m listening to too many of my disheartened Met friends, but… call me less bullish on these Mets.
At 30-33, the Mets have the 9th best record in the NL, good for a 77-win pace. At this point, I’d say they’ve earned their position because a quick look at the numbers shows that they’re just not very good at all thru 63 games. (As a daily psychodrama, however, their fanbase is outstanding.)
They just don’t do enough good things to win. To be honest, Scherzer’s been pretty good overall, but Lindor is below league average (making $34.1M a year thru 2031) & Verlander has been near-disastrous in just 7 starts. If all 3 of those guys don’t perform, forget it. Again, it’s $120 M wrapped up in 3 players. At the highest payroll in MLB history, it’s literally the worst team money can buy.
Truth is… their lineup is either underperforming, or it just plain sucks. Overall, it’s pretty unremarkable – they’re 8th in the NL in runs, but outside of not striking out (3rd best in NL), they’re near the bottom of the league: 12th in OPS, 12th in OBP, 13th in Avg, & 10th in SLG (75 points behind ATL).
On the mound, they’re 13th in ERA (relievers 11th/starters are 13th w/ 4.93) and they’ve given up more HRs than any team in MLB except Oakland. FWIW, they have the 2nd highest fielding percentage & 2nd fewest errors in the NL.
They do have some good players (like the new catcher Alvarez), but they aren’t clicking at all like they were for most of last season (Marte, McNeil). Their platoon guys have been mostly lousy (Canha, Vogelbach). If they take their lumps in Pittsburgh this wknd, then again vs. the Yanks next week, I get the feeling that these Mets will have that “this-just-ain’t-our-year” vibe for the rest of the season.
Yeah, I’m with you. The Mets just aren’t a fearsome team.
Their pitching has been especially bad. They’re 29th in collective pitching fWAR at 1.2, ahead of only the Oakland A’s. The decision to shell out tons of money to the ghosts of Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer has not paid off, and the bullpen without Diaz has been pretty awful — only two of their relievers are above replacement level.
Aside from a couple of guys like Alonso, they have a bunch of hitters who slap at the ball, which, in the long run, is not a very good offensive approach. If the BABIP luck runs out and your lineup doesn’t possess a lot of power, you might be in for a long season.
They were drubbed by the Pirates last night – man, what a frustrating year for them. It doesn’t make me sad, but would have to be frustrating.
Game thread is up:
Well done, AAR