Tag: atlanta braves

We’re going to divide the column in half today, dear reader, so be prepared. Up first: 

The Glass Half Empty 

Look, it is useless to sugarcoat the amount of damage the Mets did to themselves this weekend in Georgia. They fulfilled a legion of dark prophesies from a solid core of their fan base, who only know Atlanta as a torture chamber that has ruined too many baseball seasons to count. 

Including, for the time being, this one. 

For the Mets desperately craved the biggest perk afforded the winner of the NL East. Forget the bonus that the Braves will get to wait an extra round to face the Dodgers; if you’re going to win the NL pennant, the road is almost certainly going straight through Chavez Ravine at some point. No, the best benefit was this: rest. 

The Mets look cooked. They seem exhausted. Their best players have played day after day, a necessity since Starling Marte’s bat was removed from the lineup a few weeks ago. They, as much as any team in baseball, could’ve used the five days off between Wednesday’s regular-season finale and the start of the NLDS Oct. 11. 

Those batteries are relatively easy to recharge. The more complicated one involves the aspect that was supposed to be the Mets’ biggest weapon: the top of the rotation. Yes, Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer and Chris Bassitt had a lost weekend at Truist Park, but they still represent the Mets’ best chance for October survival. 

The problem is, now deGrom and Scherzer (and, if needed, Bassitt) will pitch in the best-of-three wild-card series with either the Padres or Phillies that’ll occupy next Friday/Saturday/Sunday. The NLDS with the Dodgers begins Tuesday, and there will be but one off day in that best-of-five. That means Scherzer and deGrom only go once apiece, when a bye would’ve allowed one — presumably deGrom — to throw Games 1 and 5. 

(And let’s not even speculate on the fool’s-gold errand that could be in play Wednesday if, by some miracle, the Mets sweep their doubleheader vs. the Nats on Tuesday and the Braves lose again to the Marlins after a Monday shutout. deGrom has already said he’d be ready to pitch that day, and while that’s nice, the Mets would still be shifted to the wild card if the Braves win … and wouldn’t have deGrom at all for it.) 

So, yeah. The Mets made themselves quite a mess. And now: 

The Glass Half Full 

Right now, the Mets look like a beaten, broken, dispirited team. They have surrendered all of the momentum and many of the good vibes assembled across the season’s first 156 games. It feels impossible they can muster anything resembling a resurrection at this point. 

But I can tell you two things for sure: 

Nobody was more beaten or broken than the 1999 Mets. After being nose-to-nose with the Braves in September they lost seven games in a row and headed into the final weekend needing all kinds of help just to make it to a one-game wild-card play-in game in Cincinnati. 

“This was an amazing ride,” Bobby Valentine said before the season-ending series against the Pirates, even the rose-lensed manager slipping into the past tense. But they got the help. They beat the Reds. They knocked off a powerful 100-win Diamondbacks team (managed by Buck Showalter) in the NLDS and came within a couple of outs of reaching Game 7 of the NLCS. Nobody saw that coming. 

And then there was 2015, a season we best remember for the way the Mets seized the NL East early in September and then ransacked the Dodgers and Cubs in the playoffs. But with six days to go in that season, the Mets had a two-game lead on LA for what was expected to be essential home-field advantage. 

The Mets promptly dropped five in a row, the last coming via an almost beyond-belief no-hitter by a Nationals pitcher named Max Scherzer. They squandered home-field to the Dodgers, and that sure felt like a death knell for the Mets’ World Series hopes. 

“We know we’re better than this,” David Wright said in the quiet of the post-no-hitter clubhouse at Citi Field, a curious thing to say about a team that had already clinched first place. 

Given the chance to prove that, the Mets did, all the way to the World Series. Now none of this means — empty-glass alert! — that this is the destiny of the 2022 Mets. But you really never know. You know?

The homestand burst with effervescence. There was the Old-Timer’s extravaganza that affirmed franchise history, the retirement of Willie May’s No. 24, the electric night featuring Jacob deGrom and Timmy Trumpet, plus two out of three from the Dodgers. 

But it all kind of just fizzed out, didn’t it, the Mets closing their 10-game stay in Queens with consecutive 7-1 defeats to the sad-sack Nationals, Sunday afternoon’s effort just a tad less feeble than Saturday night’s. 

It will be a grind now for the Mets, who have spent 150 days in first place and have been alone at the top since April 12. But just as Jean Valjean had Inspector Javert on his tail, just as Richard Kimble always had Lt. Gerard on his back, the Mets have the Braves relentlessly tracking them down. 

“It’s something we’re aware of,” Jeff McNeil said. “We can’t focus on that. We’ve got to focus on what we have to do. We have to come ready to play every day.” 

The division lead is down to one game, the skinniest margin since the Mets woke up with a half-game lead on July 23. It had been seven games on Aug. 10. That is a function of the Mets going 10-10 since Aug. 15 while the Braves have gone 20-5 since Aug. 9. 

“It’s a ‘dip,’ a ‘slump.’ You’ve got to use something to describe it,” manager Buck Showalter said. “But it’s about us. It’s been that way all year. [The Braves] are an obstacle to face when we face it.” 

The Mets will get the Braves face-to-face in the penultimate three-game series of the season in Atlanta from Sept. 30 to Oct. 2 before finishing with three at Citi Field against Washington. Those games against the Braves — plus three in Milwaukee a week earlier — are the only exceptions to a schedule against the majors’ underbelly. 

But then, the Mets lost two of three this weekend to a club whose .351 winning percentage ranks 30th and last in baseball. These series — including the pair of three-game series on the road this week in Pittsburgh and Miami — are no gimmes. 

“They took advantages of our mistakes the way we’ve been doing all year,” said McNeil, who went 2-for-2 but whose third-inning error enabled the Nats to strike for four unearned runs against Carlos Carrasco. “They played good ball.” 

Patrick Corbin entered Saturday’s game with a 6.56 ERA and an 8.54 ERA in the nine starts immediately preceding that one. Other than on Eduardo Escobar’s solo home run, the Mets got only two runners as far as second base on the night. 

Erick Feddie entered Sunday’s game with a 5.29 ERA and a 9.15 ERA in the five starts immediately preceding this one. The Mets managed to get two runners in scoring position — both in the second inning — during Feddie’s six innings of work. 

That is largely a function of the top four hitters in the order — Brandon Nimmo, Starling Marte, Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso — combining to go 1-for-17 in this second consecutive defeat. 

“These are major league pitchers. I’m always going to give credit to major league pitchers,” said Showalter. “But the last little while, there have been differences. A lot of fly balls. We popped out the last few times.” 

The Mets are in a bit of a rut. All but the greatest teams in baseball history endure these types of stretches. Hey, listen, for much of the Mets’ six decades, 10-10 over 20 games would be considered a surge. This is a lull. 

There are questions about the rotation, too. Carrasco, who hadn’t pitched since Aug. 15 while dealing with tightness in his left side, said he “felt good,” following his 2 ²/₃ innings of work in which he surrendered six hits and allowed nine of the 16 batters he faced to reach base, though only one earned run was charged to his record. 

Taijuan Walker, scheduled to start Monday afternoon in Pittsburgh, has a 6.98 ERA over his last five starts. Max Scherzer removed himself from Saturday’s start after five innings because of what seemed to be a sense of body fatigue, though Showalter said he is confident the veteran won’t miss a start. 

Indeed, the Mets are working their rotation so that their starters will all work with at least five days between starts for the second straight spin cycle. There will be rest for the weary. 

Suddenly, you have to wonder where the Mets would be without Jacob deGrom. 

They weren’t going to run off and hide, not from the Braves. But now they’re in the crucible with the defending champs. Now, as Showalter said, “We all have our tales of woe.” 

Javert is on their heels. Gerard is knocking on the door.