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ATLANTA — The most gruesome portion of the Mets’ schedule got off to an ominous start.
Monday kicked off four games with the second-place Braves, the weekend has four more with the Phillies and their Wild Card aspirations in store, then the Mets will play two charged up games at Yankee Stadium.
Playing under dark, foreboding clouds all night in Atlanta, the Mets were drubbed 13-1. A 55-minute rain delay in the second inning cast a very strange feeling on the game, and fittingly, it ended up being kind of a wash.
The Mets only got six outs from Carlos Carrasco, who was pitching when the tarp came out, then took the mound again to get one more before departing for good. Carrasco was seen grabbing his left side on his way out, and the Mets officially diagnosed it as left side tightness.
Because of that, Monday became a bullpen game for the Mets, which meant a lot of Joely Rodriguez and Adonis Medina. The former is still getting chance after chance because he is the only left-hander in the team’s bullpen, while the latter has been fine in limited opportunities but is not someone a playoff team should be counting on.
They had to pick up three innings in relief of Carrasco, though, and while their sheer presence on the mound allowed Buck Showalter to save some of his big guns for later in the series, Rodriguez and Medina combined to give up six earned runs. Hilariously, position player Darin Ruf came in to pitch the seventh and eighth innings and did not let in any runs.
Sometimes, that’s just how the cookie crumbles.
Carrasco and the rain put the Mets in a very weird spot, but even after things got somewhat back to normal, the offense did not. Braves’ starter Spencer Strider, the same one who said the Mets got lucky against him in their Aug. 7 showdown, held his self-created haters to three hits and one earned run in five innings. The three through six hitters in the Mets’ lineup — Francisco Lindor, Pete Alonso, Daniel Vogelbach and Mark Canha — did not reach base at all.
From the bad weather to Atlanta fans’ continued, enthusiastic participation in the tone deaf Tomahawk Chop, it was a bad scene all around on Monday night. The Braves mercilessly scored eight runs in the bottom of the sixth. When it finally ended, it did so on a scary looking play for the Mets, as Alonso had to reach into a charging runner to complete the putout.
That play didn’t end up creating an even worse scene, but the visual was right in line with the rest of the night: uncomfortable bordering on tragic. Luckily, it’s just one of 162, and the odd circumstances will allow the Mets to downplay its severity. But the fact of the matter is — even with the Mets still holding a comfortable NL East lead — this was their worst loss of the season, and it came against the team that wants to take the division from them. Prior to Monday night, the Mets’ 13-2 loss in San Diego on June 8 was their most lopsided defeat of the year.
For most of the season, it’s been the Mets inflicting this type of pain on their opponents. The Amazin’s have won six games this year by eight or more runs. Monday night was the exact opposite of that, and while it won’t become a habit, it is a reminder that even the league’s best teams can get embarrassed from time to time.
But hey, at least the blowout allowed Lindor, Alonso and Starling Marte to take the last few innings off.
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