In a game that became a battle of the bullpens, the Braves’ pen proved markedly better, as they hurled four scoreless innings – after contributing seven scoreless frames Friday night – to lead Atlanta to a 9-5 win Saturday night at Citi Field.
The game turned in the staggered inning of the bottom of the seventh and the top of the eighth. Jeff McNeil pinch hit to lead off the seventh for the Mets and ripped a double in his first PA since being activated from the IL. Then Mickey Callaway continued to make the case for being in over his head as a manager as he decided to sacrifice with one of his hottest hitters, Amed Rosario.
After two unsuccessful bunt attempts put him down in the count, 0-2, Rosario swung away and grounded a ball to short. McNeil channeled Daniel Murphy to make a scratch your head play. On a ball hit to the left side, he tried to advance to third base and was thrown out. And for the third and final move that backfired, the Mets tried to hit and run and Rosario was thrown out when Joe Panik failed to make contact.
Then in the top of the eighth, with two out, the Braves strung together three straight hits. The third one was a single to left center that Billy Hamilton scored on from first base because J.D. Davis took too long to throw the ball in and when he finally did throw, it was a lollypop. That seemed to take all of the wind out of the Mets.
It was an incredibly disappointing ending to a game that had a remarkable middle. The Mets fell behind 4-0 early but rallied to take a 5-4 lead, thanks to a 451-foot, 3-run homer to center field by Pete Alonso. It was Alonso’s 41st homer of the year, tying him with Carlos Beltran and Todd Hundley for the single-season HR mark for the franchise.
But unlike Atlanta’s pen, New York’s relief corps allowed four runs in three innings. And Edwin Diaz left the game with an undisclosed injury.
Wilson Ramos extended his hitting streak to 18 games.
Hey, maybe the Mets can look to have these past two games stricken from the record due to the hideousness of the uniforms they were forced to wear in this Player’s Weekend series.
This game was managed and played like a little league game.
Re: Callaway in over his head—-
Although I think the Frazier error was a questionable error, his lack of offensive production should cause him to be removed from the line up. I don’t think his defense has been impacted by his bat struggles.
It’s time for Mickey to lead by putting the best out there. Frazier needs to move to the bench.
Panik to 3rd? McNeil to 2B?
Mickey admitted that moving McNeil bs j & forth to OF and IF is rough on one w hamstring injuries.
Yet.,.
I believe that had Cano not been injured, he’d be out there red hot or dead cold slump.
It’s not winning baseball.
Taking the bat out of hot hitting Rosario is just another bone headed move.
This was one game we deserved to lose. Sloppy base running, sloppy defense, bad managing and lousy starting pitching. You would hope that given the lead Wheeler could have kept it for an inning. Not so.
Like I’ve been saying all season long, these are the Mets! Our owners suck, our GM sucks, our coach sucks…. get it? We have 4 really good players, other than that? Nothing. For too long we’ve been waiting for Wheeler to be something and we’re still waiting. He should have been traded for position players. Matz? The same. We have too many players playing out of position and this talk about needing Cano in the lineup? Please! He’s an older broken down liability with an albatross contract, thank you Brodie!
And lets not forget, that incredible win streak we had that got us in the chase was against all teams with losing records. Now we see that playing a better team, we don’t have it. If it weren’t for Alonso and deGrom there’d be no reason to watch this team and if we don’t get a new GM (Bloom) and a new coach (Girardi) and keep the Coupons out of decisions, we’re going to waste the great talents these guys have and they’ll be gone.