Conditions were supposed to be good for the Braves Wednesday night, with Jason Heyward back in the lineup for the first time in a month and more than 30,000 in the stands for his Bobblehead night to boot.
But rain, whipping wind and hail turned it into a nasty night at Turner Field instead. The Mets and more stagnant offense by the Braves didn’t help.
Two rain delays totaling two hours and 33 minutes ultimately just prolonged the pain of a 4-0 loss, the Braves’ fourth in a row to the Mets spanning the past two series.
“I think the best thing that could have happened for us tonight is for that storm to sit right over Turner Field,” Chipper Jones said.
The Braves have lost three in a row overall after a season-long six-game winning streak to fall 4 ½ games behind the Phillies, their biggest deficit since May 31.
They managed only two hits on the night and five balls out of the infield. Alex Gonzalez’s double off Dillon Gee in the second inning was about all the Braves had to muster until Brooks Conrad singled to center with two outs in the eighth. The Braves were shut out for the sixth time this season and struck out 12 times.
“This game isn’t any fun when you’re not getting any offense,” Jones said. “With the exception of a few games in Houston and one game here and there throughout the season, it’s been pretty sparse around here offensively. This team, we need to get it going.”
Now the Braves are assured of book-end series losses to the Mets around a stretch of winning six of seven. The series wraps up Thursday night, just seemingly a few short hours after the second game ended at 12:10 a.m.
Tim Hudson gave up three runs in four innings before a second delay ended his night. A two-run home by Angel Pagan in the top of the fourth inning just inside the right field foul pole was his biggest regret.
“I was surprised he kept it fair, but that’s just the way things are going right now,” Hudson said.
He has now allowed 19 earned runs in his past 23 2/3 innings, dating back through that eight-run outing in Anaheim on May 20 he left with back stiffness. The Braves have lost four times in those five starts, and he has fallen to 5-6 with a 4.08 ERA.
Gee, on the other hand, is golden for the Mets just by trotting out on the mound. The Mets won for the 10th time in games he’s started this season.
Still, the weather managed to spoil the night for him too. Gee was trying to become the first Mets pitcher since Dwight Gooden in 1988 to start a season 8-0 with all eight wins as a starter. But the second delay ended his night after only four innings – all scoreless – and he couldn’t qualify for a win, despite leaving with a 3-0 lead.
“I don’t know who helped this guy with his transformation but he’s really, really tough right now,” Jones said. “And they jump out on top 1-0 in the first and just climbing uphill. We couldn’t do anything offensively; it didn’t matter who they threw out there tonight.”
The night started downright eerie, and eerily familiar too. A one hour and 22 minute rain delay just seemed to put off the inevitable because the game was maybe two minutes old before Mets leadoff man Jose Reyes has scored a run.
He doubled over Heyward’s head on the third pitch of the game from Hudson and took third base after Heyward missed the cutoff man. Reyes scored on a Ruben Tejada grounder to give him three runs in the first two games of the series.
The teams played only three more innings before the weather turned bad again, with gusting wind and rain, and the game was halted at 9:39 p.m.
In the meantime, the best thing Braves fans had going was a broadcast of the Phillies-Marlins game on the video board in center field, with the Marlins leading in the ninth. But in keeping with the rough-night theme, the Phillies rallied to force extra innings and won in the 10th.
