Perez slammed by Cespedes early as Mets rout Braves, 10-3
The Braves keep hoping Williams Perez will have some success before the season ends, to put behind him a three-month stint on the disabled list and start to feel a little better about things in his second major league season.
But time is running out, he’s struggling, and now he’s hurt again.
Yoenis Cespedes hit a third-inning grand slam off Perez that gave the Mets a 5-0 lead Sunday, and they cruised to a 10-3 rout of the Braves in a series finale at Turner Field.
Perez (2-3) gave up four hits, five runs and one walk in 2 2/3 innings and left the game with what was diagnosed as an impingement in his right triceps. Joel De La Cruz followed in relief and gave up three hits and three runs in 1 1/3 innings.
That made for a long day for the Bravos, who had already planned to rest a few key relievers Sunday. They were down 10-1 after five innings.
Perez, who was DL’d earlier with a strained rotator cuff in his right shoulder, said Sunday’s discomfort was just above the elbow. He’ll be evaluated further Monday.
He first felt it on a curveball in the dirt to Cespedes, who hit the next pitch for the grand slam. Two pitches later after a groundout, Perez was replaced after a Braves trainer noticed him trying to loosen his arm.
“I think it’s an elbow thing,” Perez said. “My shoulder, I think it’s fine. I mean, I felt a little (shoulder) tightness, but I don’t think that’s the issue at all. It’s the elbow.”
Mets right-hander Seth Lugo, a 26-year-old rookie making his fifth major league start, limited Atlanta to six hits, two runs and one walk in seven innings.
“I had caught him a few times in Triple-A last year,” said Braves catcher Anthony Recker, who was a Met in 2016. “He does a really good job of changing speeds with his fastball. From what I saw in the video it looked like he was spotting up (locating pitches) well in his last few starts, and he did a great job of keeping the ball out of the middle of the plate.”
When the Braves loaded the bases with none out in the fourth inning, they failed to score (Recker pop-up, Dansby Swanson double-play grounder).
“Bases loaded, nobody out, we don’t score,” Braves interim manager Brian Snitker said. If the Braves got a hit there, “That puts us right back in it. That was tough. We had two four-run innings against us, that didn’t help either. Just one of them days. It’s just tough when your starter leaves that early.”
Recker said, “I was up with nobody out and popped up to the infield. Obviously can’t do that in that situation, then he got Swanson to ground into a double play. (Lugo) didn’t have a ton of trouble, but that one inning we really had a chance.”
When the Braves loaded the bases again with one out in the ninth, Jace Peterson grounded into a double play.
By contrast, when the Mets loaded the bases with one out in the third, Cespedes cleared them with a ringing drive to the left-field pavilion seats, his 30th home run.
The Braves have hit .195 (23-for-118) with bases loaded. They are one of three teams that haven’t hit a grand slam, while the Mets have six including two from Cespedes, who has six homers and 17 RBIs in 20 career games against the Braves.
The Braves’ .487 OPS with bases loaded was 65 points below the majors’ next-worst before Sunday, when Atlanta’s sunk some more.
Freddie Freeman extended his on-base streak to a career-best 33 games with a first-inning walk and pushed his hitting streak to 17 games – longest active in the majors – with an RBI single in the fourth, after Adonis Garcia’s leadoff double.
Other than that and Brandon Snyder’s pinch-hit homer in the seventh, there wasn’t much to recommend of the Braves’ offense until the ninth inning, when Matt Kemp doubled and scored before they loaded the bases again.
But it was the pitching that laid the foundation for this defeat, and for others lately in games when the run production has been solid. The Braves have hit .293 with 14 homers and a relatively robust 70 runs in their past 13 games, but are just 7-6 in that span due mainly to a 4.92 ERA. They allowed five or more earned runs in seven of those 13 games.
Perez has a 15.83 ERA in his past three starts, including one before and two since his three-month DL stint for a strained right rotator cuff. He’s allowed 17 earned runs, 19 hits and four homers in 9 1/3 over three starts, after going 2-1 with a 3.86 ERA and .233 opponents’ average in eight starts through June 1 and allowing just three homers in 44 1/3 innings.
He gave up seven runs, six hits in 4 1/3 innings on June 6 at San Diego, got hurt, and has given up 12 hits, 11 runs and three homers in five innings over two starts since returning from the DL.
