Braves’ rally against Mets comes up short

This was shaping up to be the strangest and most improbable of all the Braves comebacks in the past week.

If only they could have pulled it off.

The Braves staged a furious rally from an eight-run deficit against the Mets but couldn’t finish the come back and lost 8-6 on Friday at Turner Field. The Braves (25-48) have lost two of three games since their season-long six-game winning streak.

The Braves overcame deficits in six of their past seven victories. This one appeared to be a lost cause after James Loney’s three-run home run in the fifth inning against Aaron Blair put the Mets (39-33) ahead 8-0. Mets ace left-hander Steven Matz had faced the minimum 12 batters through four innings.

But then the Braves rallied with six runs against him in the bottom of the fifth, highlighted by Brandon Snyder’s pinch-hit, three-run home run.

“Obviously being down eight runs is tough but nobody is trying to give up,” Snyder said. “For the guys to come back and start rallying like that it kind of picked the fans up and got everybody into it. It came up a little short but I think it just kind shows that we are here to play and we are going to fight until the last out.

The Braves’ big inning was sparked by a weird play in the Mets’ outfield.

Jeff Francoeur led off with a double, just the second hit for the Braves against Matz. The next batter, Nick Markakis, hit a lazy fly ball to left-center field.

But center fielder Yoenis Cespedes appeared to lose sight of the ball in the lights set against the twilight sky, which sometimes happens at Turner Field. Cespedes jogged toward the infield as if he thought it was a pop up, and seemed startled when the ball instead dropped between him and left fielder Michael Conforto.

“It was one of those games where a lot of crazy stuff went on,” Braves interim manager Brian Snitker said.

After that mishap, the Braves suddenly started stringing together hits against Matz.

Adonis Garcia rapped a double to deep right-center field that scored Francoeur and Markakis. With one out and two runners on base, Snyder sent Matz’s 2-0 pitch over the right-field wall to cut the lead to 8-5.

“Brandon has the big hit there to kind of lift everybody up and it’s like, ‘Wow, we can do this,’” Snitker said.

Jace Peterson, Ender Inciarte and Freddie Freeman hit consecutive singles, with Freeman’s hit scoring a run. That prompted Mets manager Terry Collins to pull Matz, who hadn’t pitched less than five innings or allowed more than four runs since his first start of the season at the Marlins.

The Braves’ rally fizzled from there. Mets reliever Hansel Robles retired the next two batters to start a run of eight consecutive outs. Markakis hit a two-out double to chase left-hander Antonio Bastardo in the eighth inning but closer Jeurys Familia came in and got Garcia to ground out on his first pitch.

The Braves got two runners on base with no outs in the ninth against Familia when Tyler Flowers singled and Familia hit Erick Aybar with a pitch. The next batter, pinch hitter Chase d’Arnaud, popped up a bunt that third baseman Flores dived to catch it but the ball bounced.

Flowers and Aybar scrambled back to their bases thinking Flores did catch it, and he completed the double play.