3 Up, 3 Down: Mets Take Four of Five From Atlanta

3 UP

Dominant Pitching

The tone for the series was set when Edwin Diaz came into the eighth inning of the first game of this series. He recorded the first six-out save of his career leading to talk he merited not only Cy Young consideration but MVP consideration as well. It was the first of three saves for him in this series.

David Peterson would pitch 5 1/3 scoreless. Max Scherzer struck out 11 over seven scoreless. Jacob deGrom flirted with a perfect game for five innings while striking out 12 over 5 2/3 innings.

Spencer Strider can whine all he wants about BABIP and how things will be different in October all he wants. Fact is the Mets have the most dominant pitching in the sport. When they pitch like this, no one has a chance to beat them in a seven game series, or as we saw in this series, a five game series either.

Big Game Buck

While we bemoaned what the Mets didn’t do at the trade deadline, we overlooked what they did do. They built a team perfect for Buck Showalter. With this roster, we saw Showalter manage circles around Brian Snitker.

As we saw in the comeback that came short, he was able to perfectly mix and match Mark Canha, Tyler Naquin, Darin Ruf, and Daniel Vogelbach. That lead to the Mets almost overcoming insurmountable odds, but it also led to the Mets winning four out of five.

We saw a number of key moves in the series. There was Diaz recording a six out save. The Tomas Nido suicide squeeze. He even trusted Joely Rodriguez getting 3 1/3 scoreless out of him.

The Mets were great in this series sending a statement to the Atlanta Braves and the rest of baseball. Showalter definitively led them there with his managing in this series.

Coming Up Huge

Pete Alonso was Alonso driving in seven with a 1.132 OPS in the series. Francisco Lindor scored six runs and knocked in three as he had a 1.000 OPS in the series. Alonso has been in the MVP conversation all year, and Lindor is now entering it, and they both showed why in this series.

Nido had the aforementioned suicide squeeze, and he was one of the Mets better hitters in the series. Brandon Nimmo was getting on base atop the lineup. Luis Guillorme was great in the field highlighted by nailing Travis d’Arnaud at the plate.

Naquin hit two homers in a game, and Vogelbach homered and walked three times. We also saw Vogelbach lumber around the bases to score from first on a double.

Overall, each and every player on this roster did the things they do that make this Mets team great. It showed this is a far superior team to the Braves. They showed they can rise to the occasion and win a World Series.

3 DOWN

Walker’s Start

Taijuan Walker caught his cleat in the first inning of his start. Walker said he wasn’t injured, but we would see Walker unable to throw his splitter, and the Braves pounced on him scoring eight runs against him in his one plus inning of work.

The one hesitation with Walker is his second half last season. After being an All-Star, he was 0-8 with a 7.13 ERA in the second half.

Walker was again very good in the first half of this year. So far in three second half starts, he is 2-1 with a 9.95 ERA. Of course, that is skewed by this poor start. All told, this is something worth monitoring but not overreaction.

Cora’s Send

With two outs and the bases loaded, and the Mets down 8-0 in the second, Brandon Nimmo hit a single up the middle. The ball was hit very hard, and Michael Harris has an excellent arm.

Joey Cora had absolutely no business sending Guillorme home. That goes double with Starling Marte on deck, and Ian Anderson all over the place. However, he sent Guillorme who was easily thrown out. It was about as bad and clueless a send as we will ever see.

It was actually a reminder Cora was rated as the worst third base coach in the game leading to the Pittsburgh Pirates firing him. It was also reminiscent of some of the brutal decisions Cora made earlier in the season.

That said, over the last few months, Cora seemed to improve drastically, and his decision making had not been an issue. Hopefully, this is just a blip for Cora.

Upon Replay, the Safe Nimmo Is Now Out

Marte hit a ground ball, and Braves second baseman Orlando Arcia did not tag Nimmo. Despite that, Nimmo was ruled out.

After Marte beat the throw to first, Matt Olson threw to second base. Nimmo, believing he was out, was not hustling and failed to even fully stand up. When he got up, he made no move whatsoever towards second.

Notably, when the throw was made, the second base umpire indicated he was out before Dansby Swanson went to apply the tag. Somehow, the replay team opted to say according to the placement of runners, Nimmo was not impacted and was out anyway.

Again, Nimmo did not run assuming he was out because, well, he was twice told he was out. How the replay review center could possibly determine he was not impacted by the call is beyond ludicrous. It was just a complete embarrassment and failure of the system.

If Nimmo had the opportunity, he would have hustled and could have made the play closer. Olson’s throw would have been more difficult, and he would have had to throw it off-line because of the standing base runner. There are unlimited possibilities. Replay was designed to account for that and not penalize runners who don’t try to advance because they were called out.

In total, the replay system completely failed in that moment. It looked even worse when Nimmo hit an infield single later in the game exemplifying how Nimmo hustles and still might’ve been safe. Fortunately, that call did not impact the game.