The Braves have had their share of come-from-behind magic. On Sunday night, in search of a sweep at Citi Field, a shorthanded bullpen gift-wrapped that magic for the opposing team, and the Braves fell by an 8-5 tally to end their strong June with a 20-8 mark, the team’s best calendar month since a 20-7 record in August 2013.
The loss was disappointing, and the big eighth inning came as a capper to a very back-and-forth affair. Both teams scored in the first — the Braves got on the board first off Noah Syndergaard thanks to a Ronald Acuña Jr. single, stolen base, and two-out Josh Donaldson double; the Mets got the run right back against Max Fried via a Jeff McNeil single, a throwing error on a pickoff, and then a one-out single by J.D. Davis.
The teams also traded runs in the third. Acuña took Syndergaard deep for a solo shot to right-center, his 20th longball of the year. Then, the Braves threatened further thanks to back-to-back singles by Dansby Swanson and Freddie Freeman, but could not score when Donaldson popped out and Nick Markakis struck out to end the frame. That would prove costly and set up New York’s first lead, as the Mets followed a one-out Fried walk to Alonso with three straight singles and a sacrifice fly to plate two runs.
Fried then went on a bit of a roll, striking out four straight batters across the fourth and the start of the fifth. He got into a bit more hot water due to the vagaries of ball-in-play happenstance, as two weak infield singles and a throwing error put runners on the corners with one, but something finally went right for him as Robinson Cano’s grounder was hit right to Swanson at short for a tailor-made double play.
Down by one in the sixth, the Braves finally got to Syndergaard. Freddie Freeman drew a leadoff walk, and Donaldson followed with one of his own. A groundout by Markakis and a strikeout by Austin Riley imperiled the rally, but Johan Camargo found grass with a bloop of his own to score Freeman. Tyler Flowers then walked to load the bases, Syndergaard’s third walk of the frame (the first time he managed that dubious feat in his career) and final act in this game. The Braves tried to force the issue by pinch-hitting Matt Joyce against new Mets pitcher Chris Flexen, but Joyce bounced out to second to keep the game knotted at three runs apiece.
Both starting pitchers were out of the game at that point. Fried finished with an oddball five-inning, three-run, 6/1 K/BB ratio line in which he was basically hampered by grounders and bloops all night long. (That wouldn’t be the last time Atlanta pitcher to be tormented by bloops tonight, either.) Syndergaard’s line was more deservingly gross at three runs over 5 2⁄3 innings with a 5/3 K/BB ratio and a homer allowed, but the game was at a standstill.
With Fried gone, the Braves called on the recently-recalled Chad Sobotka, and he went right to work, dominating the bottom of New York’s order on 11 pitches, including two three-pitch strikeouts of Amed Rosario and Juan Lagares. The Braves didn’t hit paydirt against Flexen in the sixth, but wasted no time doing so in the seventh, as Acuña roped a single to left and moved to third on Dansby Swanson’s hustle double into right field, setting up a looping Freeman double into the left-field corner that bounced off the base of the wall, giving Atlanta a 5-3 lead. That would be it, scoring-wise, for the Braves in this one. Wilmer Font came on and retired the next three batters in order, stranding Freeman at second.
Sobotka gave the Braves a bit of a relief reprieve in the bottom of the seventh, throwing up a goose egg despite a McNeil single and ending the inning with a wicked strikeout of Davis, who had been 3-for-3 in the game thus far. The Braves did nothing against Font in the eighth, and then the game turned sinister for Atlanta.
Sean Newcomb came on for the eighth, and things quickly went pear-shaped. An 0-2 high fastball to Todd Frazier was deposited into the left-field seats, cutting the lead to one run. The next Newcomb pitch missed its target badly and instead hit Cano on the hand, putting the tying run on base. Two pitches later, Rosario smashed a down-and-in Newcomb fastball past Donaldson’s glove at third, and now the tying and go-ahead runs were on. The Braves seemed like they could get out of it after a successful wheel play turned a bunt attempt into a force out at third and then pinch-hitter Wilson Ramos lined out to right field, but it was not to be.
In a weird tactical move, Brian Snitker removed Sean Newcomb, due to face a left-handed batter in Michael Conforto, for another southpaw reliever, A.J. Minter. Minter jumped ahead of Conforto to the tune of a 1-2 count, but then ended up walking him, loading the bases. Minter still had the platoon advantage with the lefty-hitting McNeil up next, and baseball things ended up happening (and not in the good way), as McNeil swung at Minter’s first offering, an up-and-in fastball, and blooped it into right field for a go-ahead two-run single that registered just 68 mph off the bat (the third-weakest in-play contact of the game). Minter was then left in to face Alonso despite the latter’s 202 wRC+ against left-handed pitchers, and the result was fairly predictable: a double down the left-field line that pushed across New York’s seventh and eighth runs. Noted LOOGY Jerry Blevins was then asked to come on and face a right-handed batter in relief of Minter, and retired him to send the game to the ninth with the Braves trailing 8-5. For those keeping score at home, yes, the Braves replaced one lefty reliever with another, and then replaced that one with yet another lefty reliever. It appears that most of the Braves’ right-handed relief options were unavailable tonight due to workload (Jacob Webb, Luke Jackson) or injury (Anthony Swarzak, placed on the IL earlier today), but it was still a notably odd sequence
That’s how the game ended, of course. Edwin Diaz came on and retired the Braves in 1-2-3 fashion. The Braves drop to 50-35 on the year, with their division lead shrinking to 5.5 games over the Phillies and seven games over the Nationals. After an off day on Monday, they’ll get a chance to extend that lead further as the Phillies come to Atlanta for a three-game set. The 50-35 start through 85 games matches the team’s best effort since 2010, when they tallied the same mark. You have to go back to 2003 to find a better record through 85 games, when the Braves started 54-31.