Braves blasted by Mets, lose series in New York
NEW YORK — The Braves can’t get back to Atlanta soon enough.
A road trip that included two losses to the White Sox in Chicago, a rainout Thursday, injuries to right fielder Ronald Acuña Jr. and starting pitcher Spencer Strider, and a long travel delay Thursday night into Friday morning, ended with a resounding thud in an 8-1 loss Sunday to the Mets at Citi Field.
The Braves (46-25) lost a rubber game for just the third time in 11 tries and lost a series for just the fourth time in 25 played. In their first meeting with the last-place Mets (32-39) the Braves scored just nine runs in the three games.
An off day Monday couldn’t come at a better time before hosting the Giants for three games at Truist Park starting Tuesday.
“They’ll be fine,” Braves manager Walt Weiss said of his team bouncing back next week. “I felt like, and looked like, maybe Thursday night caught up to us. But no excuse there, it’s just what it felt like. Off day (Monday), we’ll get a nice little reboot. We’ll be ready to play on Tuesday.”
On Sunday, the Braves scored first thanks to an RBI sacrifice fly by Dominic Smith in the first inning. The Braves had loaded the bases with three straight singles off Mets starter Freddy Peralta to start the game but could only scratch across a single run.
Bryce Elder also found himself in hot water in the bottom of the first when he walked Carson Benge and gave up a single to the hot-hitting Bo Bichette. Juan Soto’s sacrifice bunt led to a fielder’s choice out at third before Jared Young rolled an RBI single up the middle, tying the game.
AJ Ewing shot an RBI double into the left-field corner, where Mike Yastrzemski went and got the ball, only to throw it off thepole holding up the protective netting in foul territory. That allowed Young to score and Ewing to go to third — Ewing then scored on Brett Baty’s RBI single up the middle.
All told, Elder (5-4) was charged with four earned runs on four hits and threw 31 pitches in the first inning. Elder had allowed four first-inning earned runs in 14 starts before Sunday.
“I think I came out a little sluggish,” Elder said. “I thought my stuff wasn’t very good, and I was just kind of spraying it around. Obviously we go long inning top of first, and then I walk the first guy (in the bottom of the first). Can’t do that and expect something good to happen. So thought I was going to kind of squeak out of there with four and kind of grind my way through it, but the two solos there at the end kind of ended that hope. Gotta learn from it and move on.
“I just think my stuff wasn’t as good, wasn’t commanded the ball didn’t have control the ball that I usually do, even from a location standpoint just from what the stuff was doing. I don’t know if that’s a prep thing that needs to be better or a focus thing, but gonna spend the next five days working on it and be ready to go again.”
Elder avoided further damage the next three innings, stranding five Mets runners in the process, before Ewing and Marcus Semien hit back-to-back homers to start the fifth.
That spelled the end of the day for Elder, who was charged six earned runs on 10 hits and two walks. In his last four starts, Elder has allowed 16 earned runs on 27 hits and walked six over 20 innings (a 7.20 ERA).
After allowing the three singles to start the game, Peralta retired the next 14 hitters he faced in order until Sandy León, hitting .075 at the time of his plate appearance, hit a two-strike, two-out single into right field in the fifth.
Peralta (5-5) allowed just one run on four hits over five innings of work.
“We had a chance to put up a big number there in the first. Peralta minimized the damage there, only got out of there with one,” Weiss said. “But they took advantage of the first inning and put up a crooked number, and kind of playing behind the eight ball the rest of the way.”
Soto padded the Mets’ lead in the eighth with a two-run single off Braves reliever Anthony Molina, a scoring play that came after an Ozzie Albies error had put runners at second and third with nobody out.