Jason Vargas‘ last start of 2007 was a 3.1 inning effort where he allowed nine runs on 11 hits.  His first start of this season was a 3.2 inning effort where he allowed nine runs on nine hits.  Seeing that, you would only assume Vargas could only improve from there.

Seeing his start today, you would be right.  That’s the good news. The bad news is he’s still terrible.

A Nick Markakis double and Kurt Suzuki gave the Braves a 3-0 lead in the first, and they were off and rolling.

Really, at that point, the game was over.  It was.

Not only did the Braves have Julio Teheran on the mound, but the Mets had another one of their non-competitive lineups enragingly featuring Jose Reyes leading off and playing third.  To be fair, Reyes limited the damage by going 0-4 and misplaying what should have been a foul out.

To perfectly encapsulate both how this game and this series was, Teheran was 2-2 with an RBI and a sac fly.  The entire Mets offense had just two hits off of him, and those did not come until the seventh inning when the score was already 11-0.

That’s right.  11-0.

It got to that point because the Braves chased Vargas in the fifth with a Ronald Acuna and Markakis home run.  Matt Harvey would get the Mets out of the fifth inning jam, and he would pitch a perfect sixth.

Harvey’s velocity was back up to 95, and for a moment you caught yourself thinking maybe he turned the corner.  Well, he didn’t.  Not even close.  In the seventh, he allowed five runs on three hits and three walks.

After the game, you heard people like Nelson Figueroa say Harvey isn’t even a Major League pitcher anymore.  Of course, the silence on Reyes, who was terrible again, and Adrian Gonzalez, who wasn’t great again, was deafening.

Right now, there are a lot of problems with the Mets.  Fortunately, one of them isn’t Jacob deGrom, who appears to be healthy enough to make his next start.  So, there’s that.

Game Notes: The Mets entered this series without being swept or shut out all year.  They’ve now been swept and been shut out in consecutive games.