ATLANTA — Another year, another Mets season that dies in the unfriendly confines of Truist Park, the suburban playpen in which the Braves have begun to torture the Mets with regular and vicious abandon.
At least last year the Mets waited until October before offering terms of surrender.
This time around, they didn’t even make it to Flag Day.
Too harsh? Too early? Maybe. And maybe. But there is one thing that is abundantly clear after the carbon-copy 7-5 loss to the Braves on Wednesday night, a second straight game in which the Braves laughed off a three-run lead and roared past the Mets as if they were planted three feet deep in the Georgia soil.
The disparity between these two teams — which each won 101 baseball games only last year — is laughable right now. And here’s the problem: while the Plan B of the wild card is a nice insurance policy to keep in your back pocket, you eventually need to win a few games to get there. You can’t go on Open Table and just reserve a slot in October.
“We’re a little snakebit right now,” Mets manager Buck Showalter said.
Max Scherzer is taken out of the game by Buck Showalter during the sixth inning of the Mets’ 7-5 loss to the Braves.USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Con Sure they are. But struggling teams attract serpents’ teeth. They put themselves in position to get snakebit. All the way back to last week, when it seemed the Mets had maybe figured things out, Showalter had talked about how hopefully the Mets were starting to expect good things for themselves now, instead of waiting for the sky to fall.
He still feels that way.
“Our guys will get what they’re putting into this eventually,” he said.
For now, what they’re getting is a daily dose of humility laced intermittently with humiliation. This time, it was Max Scherzer who was staked to a three-run cushion, who looked mostly terrific in striking out 10 Braves, but hung a slider to Sean Murphy in the fifth and then completely unraveled in the sixth. The Mets needed Scherzer to be their rock. Instead, on this night he was a millstone, and it was calamitous.
“We’re fine, we’re competing,” Scherzer said. “This is major league baseball. This is what happens sometimes. We’re a good ballclub. This happens sometimes.”
Pete Alonso, who was forced to leave the game after suffering a left wrist contusion when he was hit by a pitch, watches the action during the Mets’ loss.APThe Mets actually escaped the game with a couple of enormous breaks. Pete Alonso was struck in the left wrist by a 97-mph Charlie Morton fastball in the first inning and came out of the game, which seemed an ominous sign; X-rays proved negative and he’s listed as day-to-day. Then, three innings later, Tommy Pham’s shoulder collided with Francisco Lindor’s thigh as they both chased a fly ball. That was inches away from catastrophe.
So that was the good news.
The bad news?
Well, just about everything else.
Scherzer couldn’t protect a lead. When it looked as if the Mets were about to retake the lead in the seventh, Ronald Acuña Jr. made a breathtaking catch of a Pham drive and robbed the Mets of two runs. Michael Harris II, hitting .165 on the year coming in, had three hits, including a game-tying double off Scherzer in the sixth and the two-run home run off a cement-mixer cutter by Adam Ottavino that won the game in the eighth.
“I regret it,” Ottavino, ever the stand-up guy, said.
Every day, it’s something else. Every game, it’s something new. You don’t see these kinds of things afflicting the Braves. You’ve seen it every day all across this five-game losing streak that has sunk the Mets back below .500. Once more, the Mets came to Atlanta, a city of such misery in the 29 years they have shared a division with the Braves, hoping to make a statement.
Once more, the Braves splintered that statement before the Mets could even clear their throats. Once more, the Braves made Atlanta a most inhospitable place. Since the Braves joined the NL East in 1994, the Mets are 6-10 at Fulton County Stadium, 67-106 at Turner Field, and now 22-32 at Truist, and some of those losses have been almost too absurd to believe.
And too many have left you shaking your head and realizing: the Mets are here. And the Braves are up there. Last year it took until October for that to set in. This year they have chosen to avoid the Flag Day rush.
