Credit: Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports
The Mets sent the ace of their pitching staff, two-time NL Cy Young award winner Jacob deGrom, to the mound on Thursday to close out their set against the division rival Braves at Truist Park in Atlanta.
After the Mets got a lead early on, deGrom got rocked for three runs in the bottom half of the first inning, capped off by a two-run home run to right field by Austin Riley. But deGrom would settle down, at one point making another run at Tom Seaver – striking out eight Braves in a row. He would end up going seven innings, allowing three runs on five hits with 14 strikeouts. After that first inning, he all but completely cut his fastball and went to the slider for half his 93 pitches, 70 of which went for strikes.
“I noticed they were hunting the fastball, that’s why I tried to go heavy on slider and changeup…made the adjustment…” deGrom said when assessing his shaky start. “The mistake I made was to Albies, biggest mistake pitch I made of the night…good job by Riley there. I said to James, ‘How did he hit that?'”
After deGrom left, Trevor May was called in to keep the game close, in turn leading to a game-tying home run by Dom Smith in the ninth, only to be undone by Freddie Freeman‘s walkoff single in the bottom half of the inning.
“It’s tough. Tough to hear out there, I was yelling at him…” Seth Lugo said about that final play by Guillorme on the Freeman walkoff during a postgame press conference. “We’re grinding it out, every inning, every game…”
Lugo also had a critical error to start the Braves’ ninth inning when he lost his footing on what appeared to be a routine play to first.
“Honestly, I should’ve put the ball in my pocket…” Lugo went on to say when talking about his error.
The Mets will look to rebound from this bad stretch when they face the struggling Yankees for a three-game July 4th weekend set at Yankee Stadium starting Friday. Taijuan Walker will take the mound for the Mets against Jordan Montgomery for the Yankees.
