The Braves come away from New York with a split against the Mets. On its own, it’s a fine result. In the grand scheme of things? Who knows.
There was a pretty weird feeling heading into this series in New York, There’s always a unique feeling heading into a four-game series — especially one that’s within the division, against the team that’s leading the division and had gone into this series with baseball’s best home record. The Atlanta Braves were also coming into town having dropped a three-game series against the Marlins in incredibly disappointing fashion but that was after they swept these same Mets in Cobb County.
So with Atlanta’s recent success against the Mets and New York’s overall struggles in mind in mind but also considering the fact that the venues were swapped and the Braves being consistently inconsistent all season, it was really hard to put a finger on how this series might go. I’d say that the gut punch of Chris Sale’s diagnosis of a fractured ribcage didn’t play much of a factor for the Braves in this one because by this point, a lot of this crew is just plain ol’ used to losing impact players for extended periods of time so the whole “next man up” mentality appears to be firmly ingrained into this squad at the moment.
This was just a case of simply waiting to see how the games played out and I’d say that the series surely played out like one that felt like it would be a toss-up with all the extenuating circumstances in mind. So let’s not waste too much more time and start talking about this thing, shall we?
Monday, June 23
Braves 3, Mets 2
Spencer Schwellenbach’s second go-around against the Mets went a lot better than the original appearance back on June 17 went. This time, Schwellenbach only gave up two runs over seven innings, with only four hits and one walk surrendered while he was out there. This was a very effective start from Schwellenbach and it was especially encouraging to see him bounce back against the Mets after they got him for four runs on June 17.
As it turned out, it was very important that Schwellenbach (and Atlanta’s bullpen) held New York to just those two runs that came near the end of Schwellenbach’s stint. Juan Soto hit a two-run shot to bring the Mets to within one but that was as close as New York would get on this particular night. Michael Harris II’s sacrifice fly got the Braves on the board in the second and then a solo homer from the red-hot Ronald Acuña Jr. and another sacrifice fly (this time from Sean Murphy) provided just enough offense for the Braves to eke out another win over the Mets.
Tuesday, June 24
Braves 7, Mets 4
The Mets may have started this game out in front but the Braves sure finished it as emphatically the better team on the night. New York raced out to a 3-0 lead after a rough fourth inning for Spencer Strider saw him get into some trouble and give up three runs, with walks being the root of most of his troubles.
Fortunately for Strider and us Braves fans, the Braves picked up their starting pitcher and took control of the game with a huge sixth-inning response. It’s usually never good if you have to go through three relievers in one inning and that’s exactly what happened to the Mets in the sixth. Huascar Brazobán walked the first three batters he saw and then gave up a sacrifice fly to get the Braves on the board. José Castillo gave up three singles and a hit by pitch to make it 3-3 and then Matt Olson’s RBI single off of Reed Garrett was the haymaker that gave the Braves the 5-3 lead.
The Braves actually pushed the lead out to 7-3 after Olson and Austin Riley delivered RBI doubles in the eighth inning. Raisel Iglesias was called into duty in the ninth inning with two men on and one out in the ninth and while he did give up a double that brought us to the final score of 7-4, he averted chaos and the Braves ensured themselves of a series split at Citi Field.
Wednesday, June 25
Mets 7, Braves 3
For the second night in a row, the Mets did a lot of their damage in one inning — the fourth inning, to be specific. With that being said, the damage they did in this particular fourth inning was enough to carry them to victory, as they absolutely ambushed young Didier Fuentes for five innings in that frame. Juan Soto led off that inning with a homer and the snowball just got bigger and bigger. The final two innings that Fuentes came up were thanks to Aaron Bummer, as he gave up a sacrifice fly and a single that helped New York end that inning with a 6-1 lead.
Outside of Drake Baldwin hitting a homer in the fourth inning to tie it at one run apiece and Ronald Acuña Jr. insisting on making sure that Mets fans knew he was around by delivering an RBI single in the ninth inning, the Braves didn’t have a lot going on against Clay Holmes and company. After that big inning, it was pretty apparent that the Mets were likely going to sit on that lead for the rest of the night and that ended up being the case. The winning streak against the Mets had to end at some point, right?
Thursday, June 26
Mets 4, Braves 0
By this point in the series, the magic was all gone for the Braves. Grant Holmes gave it a good shot as he went five innings and only gave up two runs. Unfortunately, this was more than enough for the Mets to take the victory with, as New York’s pitching staff came up huge after Griffin Canning left the game early with what looked like an incredibly unfortunate Achilles injury. Atlanta had only mustered up one hit over 2.2 innings against Canning while he was out there and it didn’t get too much better for the Braves in this one.
In fact, the Braves only collected two more hits the rest of the way, as this was a near-complete no-show for the Braves lineup in this one. Ronald Acuña Jr.’s hit streak came to an end, Matt Olson kept his on-base streak going and the Braves left New York with a split of the four-game series.
It really does feel like the first two wins were less about the Braves simply stepping their game up and more of a case of the Mets trying to figure things out during what’s been their roughest patch of the season. With that being said, it sure was fun to dream for a few minutes of the Braves potentially coming out of New York with either a series win or even a sweep! While a sweep would’ve been far too audacious to reach for coming into this series, it was still nice to see the Braves continue to both give the Mets fits and send them into deeper doldrums at this particular moment.
In the grand scheme of things, the Braves are simply treading water. That’s still not exactly good enough when it comes to figuring out a way to escape this hole of being a handful of games under .500 that they continue to find themselves in even here with July on the horizon. They’re now 6-4 on this 13-game stretch within the division and could end it on a happy note if they can pull off a series win over the Phillies. Again, if they’re going to get this thing turned around then they’ve got to eventually get the lead out and put together a strong stretch of form over an extended period. For now, the Braves are in a bit of a holding pattern. It’s fine in terms of stopping the bleeding but Atlanta’s going to have to get on a roll sooner rather than later.