Sloppy Mets Pound Poor Braves Pitching

It’s a good thing the Mets won this game because they were sloppy, and they looked like a Little League team. Case in point – look at this “hustle” from Jose Reyes:

Right there, Reyes turned a routine fly ball off the bat of T.J. Rivera into an inning ending double play. 

Reyes had yet another issue in the field. In the third, he helped the Braves get on the board by throwing off line. Instead of an out, Adonis Garcia reached safely. He got some home town scoring with him being awarded a hit on the play. 

Reyes wasn’t the only one with gaffes. 

In the first, while the Mets were jumping all over Bartolo Colon, Neil Walker was doubled off second off a pop up in that infield when he forgot how many outs there were. 

It should be noted that as much as his team wasn’t helping him, Jacob deGrom wasn’t helping himself much either. 

The aforementioned run allowed in the third was started with deGrom issuing a lead off walk to Dansby Swanson. Still, he should’ve gotten out of the inning unscathed because Garcia should’ve been the third out. 

In the fourth, he enduced Jace Peterson to hit into a double play leaving the Braves with a runner on third and two outs. deGrom then walked Swanson again. By the way, Swanson entered the game hitting .158/.214/.232. The two runners would come to score on an Emilio Bonifacio triple. 
The Braves got to deGrom again in  the fifth. Freddie Freeman and Matt Kemp led off with back-to-back singles. deGrom then issued yet another walk, this time to Tyler Flowers, to load the bases. Two runs scored on an ensuing Peterson RBI double. The Braves wouldn’t score another run in the inning, but that wouldn’t prevent deGrom from issuing yet another walk to Swanson. 
Once the fifth was over, deGrom was done for the night having thrown 109 pitches. His line was ugly allowing eight hits, five runs, five earned, and five walks, and five strikeouts. It broke deGrom’s stretch of ten strikeout games. 

And despite all this, the Mets actually won the game. They won the game because the Braves pitching was that bad. 

Right away, the Mets went to work with Michael Conforto hitting a lead-off double. Asdrubal Cabrera and Walker each hit RBI doubles to make it 2-0. As noted above, Walker then ran the Mets out of the inning. 

The Mets got to work again in the third. Cabrera reached on a hit by pitch, and Walker walked. Curtis Granderson then hit a huge double to make it 3-1. 

It was a huge night for Granderson. After asking for a day off to help him get his swing straight, Granderson was 2-5 with three runs, two doubles, and an RBI. 

Reyes and Rene Rivera hit RBI singles to make it 5-1. Again, as noted above, Reyes ran, actually he walked the Mets out of inning. 

Fortunately, the Mets wouldn’t run out of the inning in the fifth. After knocking Colon out of game tagging him with five runs on seven hits, the Mets beat up on Josh Collmenter. 

Granderson’s second double of the game set up runners in second and third with one out. It should be noted that Glenn Sherlock held up Walker despite it looking like he could score. So far, from what we’ve seen from Sherlock is he is much more cautious than Tim Teufel. After a number of bad sends last year, this is somewhat of a refreshing change. 

Despite the hold, Reyes and Walker would score. Reyes scored on a Rene single, and Walker scored on a TJ RBI double. Then, deGrom knocked in both Rivera’s to make it 9-3. 

After deGrom struggled through the fifth, he turned it over to the bullpen to preserve the 9-5 lead. Josh Edgin, who has been terrific of late, pitched a scoreless and hitless sixth, which included a strikeout of Freeman. Addison Reed had his first good inning in a while with a scoreless seventh. 

Watching the game, Reed was clearly not happy having pitched the seventh even if he was pitching to the Braves 3-4-5 hitters. Reed being upset is certainly understandable because Terry Collins has shown himself to be a paint by numbers manager when using the bullpen. Using Reed in the seventh was the smart move, but it was an uncharacteristic one. 

The Mets finally blew things open in the eighth when they finally got to Eric O’Flaherty. The rally SHOCKINGLY started with Conforto getting a hit off the left-handed pitcher. Despite reports to the contrary, he can actually do that. 

The Mets then loaded the bases, and it looked like the team wasn’t going to take advantage with a Walker shallow fly out to center, and a Granderson fielder’s choice. That’s when Reyes blew the game open with a bases clearing double. He then scored on a Rene RBI single to make it 13-5. 

After a TJ double, Rene scored on a Juan Lagares RBI pinch hit single. Conforto came back up in the inning, and hit a two RBI double up make it 16-5. 

Things were going so well, Fernando Salas even pitched a scoreless inning. It wasn’t easy, but it was a scoreless inning, which is important to note when he allowed a run in his previous four appearances. 

The Mets bats absolutely came alive and finally destroyed a poor Braves pitching staff.  Every starter reached base at least twice.  Mostly, they took advantage of their scoring opportunities:

Fact is, with all of the Mets starters struggling or injured, the offense will have to carry the team to some wins. This is an important first step until the pitching figures it out. 

Game Notes: Travis d’Arnaud missed the game after his wrist injury blew up again. 

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