Last week, the Braves swept the Mets courtesy of a weird game where their apparent strategy of drawing all the walks paid off to near-perfection. That game came in a Spencer Strider start and the big inning, pushed along via walks, led to a comeback win.
This week, the Braves got yet another win over the Mets, courtesy of a weird game where their apparent strategy of drawing all the walks paid off to near perfection… at least after Frankie Montas, making his season debut after being demolished by minor leaguers in his rehab starts, left the game. This game also featured a Spencer Strider start, and the Braves’ big inning helped them come back from a 3-0 deficit.
Baseball, man. You never know what you’re gonna get, other than it involving the Mets having issues in one way or another.
The early part of this game featured a lot of frustration, as the Braves could do little against Montas. Ronald Acuña Jr. inexplicably struck out looking to start the game, and though a walk and single put runners on the corners for Austin Riley, all that happened was a very hard-hit grounder ending the frame on a routine double play. The Braves got a couple more on in the third, as Nick Allen singled and Acuña walked, but Matt Olson had a barreled out, and then Marcell Ozuna took five straight pitches to “earn” a full count before going down swinging on a pitch literally flush in the other batters’ box.
Meanwhile, Spencer Strider was dealing — other than a walk to Juan Soto, he retired the other ten batters he initially faced, including five strikeouts. But, he foundered in the fourth after striking out his Brandon Nimmo-sis to start the frame, as his mechanics abandoned him. There was a four-pitch walk to Soto, and then a single up the middle after a steal to put runners on the corners. Strider missed badly with another four straight to Starling Marte, loading the bases; Jeff McNeil, who has never hit Strider well, followed with a five-pitch plate appearance where he only got one pitch in the zone (a foul), and slapped a weak fly to left to score Soto from first via sacrifice.
At this point, I need to interrupt the recounting of this game and Strider’s very terrible inning to indicate that the home plate umpiring in this game was really bad. Horrendous. Sure, it was hot down on the field in Queens, but I’m not sure that even makes sense as an excuse. Using the Statcast biggest possible definition of the zone:
Braves batteries got two strikes called on nowhere near pitches
Braves batteries had two strikes taken away on pitches that should’ve been strikes
Mets batteries had five strikes called on nowhere near pitches
Mets batteries had seven strikes taken away on pitches that should’ve been strikes
The reason I bring this up now is because, after the Mets took the lead, Strider faced Luis Torrens, got a borderline strike call and then a very egregious nowhere near strike call… but then still walked him on six pitches. And, of course, Brett Baty followed with a pathetic sub-68 mph bloop over the infield to make it a 3-0 game. A three-pitch strikeout ended the inning, but the damage was done. Montas immediately followed up with a two-strikeout frame that involved Michael Harris II inexplicably taking a full count pitch that wasn’t really even borderline but squarely in the zone, another Allen single, and then a three-pitch strikeout of Acuña of all people. It was looking grim.
Strider rebounded with a “hey I fixed my mechanics” 1-2-3 frame in the bottom of the fifth, setting down batters 18 through 20 in order with two strikeouts. And then the game got weird again.
Montas departed, and in came Huascar Brazoban. He walked Marcell Ozuna on four pitches, none of which were close. He then walked Austin Riley on eight pitches. He then walked Drake Baldwin on eight pitches. Ozzie Albies hit a sac fly, and off went Brazoban, replaced by Jose Castillo. The Braves swapped in Eli White for Alex Verdugo to gain the platoon advantage (and my gratitude), and White hit a weak liner to Baty at third… except Baty miffed the diving catch, allowing the second Atlanta run to score as the ball trickled weakly to short. Castillo then hit Harris on the elbow, re-loading the bases; Harris eventually left the game. That set up Allen’s third single of the game, this time a bonafide hard-hit ball to right on a middle-middle sinker, which knotted the score. Carlos Mendoza appeared again and shooed Castillo away, bringing in Reed Garrett. The move initially worked, as (I can’t believe I’m typing this), Garrett somehow struck out Acuña without throwing a single pitch anywhere near the zone in seven total pitches. But then Matt Olson found an elevated sinker and yoinked it hard into right field for a single that gave the Braves a 5-3 lead. Ozuna drew his second walk of the inning, but then Riley struck out, just like Acuña, without seeing a single strike.
To be clear, in this bizarro inning, the Braves had five walks, a hit-by-pitch, two strikeouts, a dropped liner, a sacrifice fly, and two legitimate hits. Phew.
After that, just like in last week’s game where the Mets crumpled after the Braves took the lead, they mostly crumpled again. That and it was hot, and the umpiring was bad, and everyone mostly just seemed done. Pierce Johnson struck out the side, working around a walk.
The Mets inserted Richard Lovelady into the game in the seventh, and I have to say, as a pro athlete you probably never want to be featured in TMZ, but Lovelady was, recently, for insisting that fans and teammates call him “Dicky.” And they say baseball players are boring. Anyway, Lovelady went 1-2-3 in the seventh, then Rafael Montero went 1-2-3 in the bottom of the inning, and yeah, this was looking like it was going to end a 5-3 game.
But it didn’t. Acuña walked with two outs, and then Olson crushed an 0-2 pitch from Dicky for a double. Ozuna then walked again (good lord, he’s dead, Jim), and then Riley doubled off Dedniel Nunez (he’s not dead, he’s Dedniel) to make it 7-3.
Dylan Dodd went 1-2-3 in the eighth, Nunez went 1-2-3 in the ninth, and then Enyel De Los Santos was asked to slam the door, but… nope. After a couple of hits, the Braves replaced him with Raisel Iglesias, who eventually ended the game via a strikeout-RBI double-groundout sequence. So, yeah, the Mets actually brought the tying run to the plate with two outs in the ninth, but thankfully, this game didn’t turn into a nightmare. Maybe if they weren’t playing the Mets.
The Braves drew nine walks and struck out nine times in this game. They didn’t hit a homer, had the only three barrels of the game, but only one of those barrels went for a hit. (Verdugo actually barreled a ball, and it died on the warning track.) Spencer Strider had an 8/4 K/BB ratio in five frames, and pitched consistently with his prior two really good outings aside from the brief mechanics-related hiccup in the fourth.
The Braves will go for a series win and sixth straight victory over the Mets tomorrow.
