Mark Vientos hit a two-run homer off Bryce Elder in the second inning, and you could basically hear the refrain: “Here we go again!” The Mets have clobbered Atlanta pitching in this series, and that two-run shot seemed to portend anther trouncing en route to a sweep. But, it wasn’t to be, as the Braves landed a couple of well-timed bloops to scope four total runs and avert the first would-be Mets sweep at Truist Park.
Overall, this was a fairly quiet game. Despite the fact that the trio of Francisco
Lindor, Juan Soto, and Pete Alonso have obliterated Elder in head-to-head matchups thus far, the Braves’ righty worked a 1-2-3 first. The Braves got a leadoff walk and a single against David Peterson in the bottom of the inning, but stranded both runners.
Elder began his second frame with a leadoff walk, and the Vientos connected for the aforementioned homer, his third in two games. That was really all the scoring for a while, though. Sean Murphy broke up his large hitless skid with a bloop broken bat single, but he too was stranded. Meanwhile, Elder danced around a couple of baserunners in each of the third and fourth innings, before a streak of seven straight Mets outs that carried him through the sixth and ended his day. Elder’s final line was a 6/2 K/BB ratio and a hit-by-pitch to go with the Vientos homer; his HR/FB went up (sigh) but the ERA and ERA estimators went down. Like many of Elder’s starts this season (and last year), he had good peripherals but wasn’t able to avoid getting dinged by a homer.
The Braves tied the game in the sixth. Marcell Ozuna drew a one-out walk, and then Ozzie Albies hit what should’ve been a tailor-made double play ball to third, but he sprinted down the line and beat it out. After a bloop single by Michael Harris II and another walk, Peterson found himself with a 2-0 count on Murphy, and threw him a sinker off the plate. Murphy chased it and weakly doinked it into right field, scoring two. Both teams then made substitutions, resulting in Eli White batting against Brooks Raley, but White hit a routine grounder to second to end the rally.
Pierce Johnson got a strikeout and Luis Torrens followed with a lineout thanks to a diving catch by Jurickson Profar in left, but then fell apart and walked two batters. That set up Dylan Lee for a measure of revenge/redemption against the Soto-Alonso gauntlet that destroyed him yesterday, and though Lee walked Soto, Alonso swung at an outer-edge changeup and pulled it into a weak groundout to third.
The Braves stranded a single in the bottom of the seventh, and Tyler Kinley worked around a leadoff hit-by-pitch in the eighth. In the bottom of the inning, the Mets called on Trade Deadline acquisition Gregory Soto, who was greeted by an Albies leadoff single that smashed off a jumping Brett Baty’s glove. After two outs, Soto issued a four-pitch walk to Murphy, and then hit Vidal Brujan (who had come in after White pinch-hit for Nick Allen). That brought up Profar with the bags packed. Profar fouled off the first sinker, and then swung at a second that was probably about chin-height, hitting it super-weakly but well enough to send it past the infield, where it dropped in for another two-run bloop. This one would stand as the game-winner: the Mets hit three one-out singles off Raisel Iglesias, but then ended up losing on consecutive infield pop-ups.
So, the Mets are still sweepless at Truist Park, but this series basically nailed the coffin shut on even a Braves miracle run. The Braves will now head to Miami to begin another road trip tomorrow.
