Mets takeaways from Friday's 7-0 loss to Braves, including 14 runners left on base
The Braves dominated the Mets in all facets of Friday's game in their 7-0 win at Citi Field.
Here are the takeaways…
- The Mets were dealt a blow to their offense less than 30 minutes prior to game time when Francisco Lindor was scratched from the lineup. The Mets announced that the shortstop had right side soreness and he will undergo imaging Saturday.
Jonathan Arauz took Lindor’s place at short and went 0-for-2 with a pair of walks and a strikeout.
-The Mets offense had a hard time getting runs on the board but they had their chances against starter Charlie Morton. In the first, the Mets had men on first and second with two outs thanks to walks by Brandon Nimmo and Pete Alonso but Daniel Vogelbach struck out swinging. In the second, Mark Vientos and Rafael Ortega led off with back-to-back singles. Danny Mendick, however, could not get the bunt down and wound up grounding out to a 6-4-3 double play and Nimmo’s fly out ended the threat.
Morton would walk two more with one out in the third inning but Vogelbach struck out and Vientos popped out. The Mets, again, would get two men on in the fourth but could not bring them in after Francisco Alvarez ended the inning with a fly out.
In total, the Mets left 14 runners on base and went 0-for-12 in those situations. All this with Morton giving out a career-high seven walks but allowed just two hits.
-Tylor Megill was on his way to having a very good start in his second start since his return to the club. He got through three scoreless frames with his fastball touching 98 mph before he got into trouble in the fourth.
After Austin Riley hit a one-out double, Matt Olson hit a broken-bat single but Riley read it wrong and didn’t advance to third. After a Travis d’Arnaud line out to center, Marcell Ozuna hit a dribbler up the third-base line for an infield single. Eddie Rosario lined a single to plate two, but Nimmo booted the ball to allow Ozuna to score and put the Braves up 3-0.
The Braves would score three more runs on Megill before he was pulled after 5.1 innings. He threw 84 pitches while allowing six runs (five earned) on nine hits and one walk. He also struck out three batters.
-Nimmo had a rough night in center field on Friday. The aforementioned booting of a single allowed one run to score and in the sixth, he misjudged a drive by d’Arnaud that went over his head and allowed the Braves to push across another run. The outfielder finished going 1-for-2 with two walks. He was replaced in center in the eighth inning by Jeff McNeil, the first time the utilityman played that position for a full inning in his career.
-Vientos was the lone bright spot for the Mets in this one. He finished 2-for-4 at the plate, his first multi-hit game since July 29 against the Nationals, and made a couple of nifty plays at third base.
As for the red-hot Alonso, he went 0-1 with three walks.
-With the Mets having a doubleheader on Saturday, Jimmy Yacabonis was the real hero of this game. He pitched 3.2 innings (54 pitches) giving up just one run on two hits and two walks while striking out two. His only blemish was a solo shot from Riley in the seventh.
Highlights
What’s next
The Mets continue their four-game series with the Braves with a doubleheader on Saturday. Game 1 is set to start at 1:10 p.m.
Neither team has announced the starters for the first game of the doubleheader.
