ATLANTA — More than any other element, the Mets’ belief system — the one that envisioned a journey from Port St. Lucie in March to The Canyon of Heroes in November — was built around Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer.
The Mets waited, in a strange mix of apprehension and exhilaration, for deGrom to finally make his 2022 debut in early August. They used the injured list twice on Scherzer, the second time seemingly as strategy to assure as much vibrancy in his 38-year-old body as possible for the stretch run.
They were working to maximize a 1-2 starter duo no other club could match and to have the pair aligned and peaking for the first two games of the organization’s most important series in six years.
But here is the thing: Baseball can be complicated, never more so than now when you can wade deep into Weighted Runs Created plus or parse your way down to how your favorite player has fared on Tuesdays against left-handed relievers. But it also can be very simple. Sometimes it just comes down to whose best players play best.
And for two days in Cobb County, the Braves’ best outdid the best of the Mets. Notably, Atlanta’s power bats outdid the Mets’ power arms. On Saturday night, it came via a 4-2 final that moved the Braves alone into first place in the NL East with four games to play. That marked just the second time this year Atlanta completed a day alone in first — as if the Braves have been employing a six-month rope-a-dope.
The Mets have the dynamic 1-2 punch. But champs are difficult to knock out. And these Braves — four-time defending NL East champs and the World Series winner last year — have a championship chin. Since falling behind by 10 ¹/₂ games on June 1, Atlanta has relentlessly stalked the Mets. On Friday and Saturday nights, the Braves made a statement, not just by beating the Mets, but also by beating deGrom and Scherzer.
“Those are our guys, those are our best shots and they stuffed them in our face,” Brandon Nimmo said. “So it doesn’t feel good. No, it doesn’t feel good at all. But you’ve got to find a way to bounce back [Sunday] and come and give it everything you’ve got.”
Sunday will provide the Mets an opportunity, behind Chris Bassitt, to regain control of their destiny. With a win, they would re-tie Atlanta atop the NL East. But the Mets also would win the season series 10-9 and would hold the tiebreaker if the clubs are tied after 162 games. Both have soft landings to finish the schedule — the Braves versus the Marlins, the Mets versus the Nationals.
“The saying goes that you’re only as good as your next day’s starting pitcher and [Bassitt] has been really good for us this year,” Scherzer said. “So we need him to go out there and do his thing and we believe we can win.”
Winning is tougher when you have a popgun versus a cannon. The Mets had 16 hits combined Friday and Saturday, but 14 of them were singles. The carousel of continue-the-rally hits that elevated the Mets earlier this year is creaky now. Meanwhile, the three leading homer hitters on the NL’s top long-ball team — Austin Riley, Matt Olson and Dansby Swanson — each went deep against deGrom on Friday. Meanwhile, the Mets’ two best hitters — Pete Alonso and Francisco Lindor — combined for one single in eight at-bats as the Braves won the opener 5-2 to create a tie atop the NL East.
Alonso and Lindor were far better Saturday, teaming to ignite a two-out rally that gave the Mets a 2-1 lead in the fifth.
But for a second straight game against a Mets co-ace, the Braves’ hitters were just better. In the bottom of the fifth, Ronald Acuña Jr. singled with one out and Swanson homered. Olson, who had driven in Riley in the fourth, led off the sixth with a homer. Scherzer did not complete the inning. In all, Acuña, Swanson, Riley and Olson combined for 10 hits, four RBIs and four runs Saturday. The Mets scored four runs total in the first two games of the series.
“They score runs the way you have to score runs off Jake and Max and that’s pretty much just hitting home runs because you are not really going to string hits together against them,” Nimmo said. “So hats off to them for peaking at the right time.”
Scherzer had been essential in keeping the Braves from the NL East peak this season. He won his first three starts against Atlanta with a 2.21 ERA, 28 strikeouts and just one homer allowed in 20 ¹/₃ innings. But in start four, he said his delivery got too East-West rather than North-South, which led to too few swings and misses 24 hours after deGrom left following six innings with a blister on his right middle finger.
So what exactly do the Mets have in their dynamic duo, especially if they don’t win the division and have to go immediately into a best-of-three wild card beginning Friday? DeGrom debuted off the IL on Aug. 2 and the Mets are just 10-10 in his and Scherzer’s starts since then.
That is not how this was conceived. When owner Steve Cohen guaranteed Scherzer the most per-annum money in MLB history, the dream was deGrom and Scherzer fronting the Mets’ first division title since 2015 and a first championship team since 1986.
On two nights in Cobb County, however, the Mets’ belief system has been disrupted.
