Round One To Fried And Kenley

Jacob deGrom is a hell of a pitcher. I’d go still go to war with him any day of the week. Even though we knew he wasn’t invincible, I think the league kinda felt that way up to a point. Remember, Mookie Betts hit a home run off him on August 31st and still said after the game that he may have been pitching at a level that nobody had ever reached before. In the eyes of the league, he was invincible.

But in the three starts leading into Friday’s Braves start, he has struggled. He pitched to a 6.60 ERA in starts against the Cubs, Pirates, and Athletics … not exactly the first division there. And when deGrom was wild, he was wild in the strike zone, making himself very hittable. Surely the Braves noticed this. Remember that for 5 and 2/3’s on August 7th, he made them look silly. And he had that stuff back on Friday night in long stretches. But when he missed, the Braves were ready. They weren’t going to take a fastball down the middle because they were looking for something else or they were afraid they were going to look silly.

The one thing that deGrom had was that air of invincibility around the league. And I think that’s been chipped away at a little bit, and you saw the Braves not afraid to take good swings at bad fastballs. As a result, Austin Riley and Matt Olson crushed a couple of middle middle pitches (slider to Riley, fastball to Olson), and the momentum the Mets had after scoring the firsr run of the game in the second inning was gone. Overall, it was a good bounce back from the Oakland disaster. A solo homer by Dansby Swanson in the 6th off a pitch that was down but, again, caught a little too much middle of the plate, was the final dent in deGrom’s evening, which saw a lot of the same checker patters as the starts aganst the Cubs and Pirates starts. Swing and miss stuff, but was hit hard when he missed location in the strike zone.

On the other side of the ball on Friday, the Mets were squaring up Max Fried pretty good in the first two innings, including the debut at-bat of super prospect Francisco Alvarez, who smacked a Fried pitch hard with runners on first and second, but it was right to Riley for a 5-4-3 double play, which led to the Mets only getting the one run in the 2nd. But Fried kept them off balance with a lot of off-speed stuff for innings 3-5 before he left the game due to illness.

The worrisome thing about Friday’s game, other than the loss and more than deGrom (and more even than the offense, because as Francisco Lindor would say: Braves pitchers drive nice cars too), was the hammering of Tylor Megill by the Braves in the 7th. Matt Olson singled and Travis d’Arnaud doubled to lead off the 7th against Megill, and after a sac fly made it 4-1, Orlando Arcia slammed a double to left-center to make it 5-1 and end Megill’s night. Megill took a circuitous route to being a reliever as injury forced him from the rotation and there’s just no room for him there, and he’s still dealing with returning from that injury in a new role so it’s still spring training for him. But he’s going to be counted on to shore up an inconsistant middle relief corps. And if he can’t shake off the injury rust and settle into the role in time, the Mets are going to be in trouble come Ocotber 11th, hopefully … or October 7th if the Mets have two more games like the ones they had tonight.

After Tomas Nido homered in the 8th to cut the Braves lead to 5-2, the Mets rallied in the 9th off Kenley Jansen. Jansen hit Mark Canha with one out because everyone hits Mark Canha. Jeff McNeil almost took Jansen’s head off with a single, and then Jansen walked the white hot Eduardo Escobar to load the bases. Then came the move that the Mets world will be talking about: Buck Showalter let Alvarez, in his first major league game, bat against Jansen with the bases loaded with one out, even with Daniel Vogelbach on the bench. Buck sure as hell wanted Alvarez to show how strong he was and run into one. Boy, Alvarez tried. He fouled the first pitch back, swung out of his shoes at strike two on the cutter, and then he lost the bat on strike three. He was absolutely over anxious.

Tyler Naquin was the final hope and he battled in a 9 pitch at-bat which included six foul balls … a couple of them being the “skin of its teeth” variety which barely kept him alive. But he swung through a sinker to end the game and give the Braves round one in this heavyweight fight. The first game was the one I thought the Mets needed to grab, as I wonder if the Mets can hit Charlie Morton’s stuff on Sunday. But the good news is that tomorrow the Mets have Max Scherzer going. I have said it before during this season, and it certainly applies here: The Mets paid Max Scherzer $130 million for games like the next one.

Today’s Hate List

1. Matt Olson
2. Austin Riley
3. Dansby Swanson
4. A.J. Minter
5. Orlando Arcia