After having their five-game winning streak snapped on Friday night at Citi Field, the New York Mets (67-62) dropped their second in a row to the Atlanta Braves (79-52), 9-5, at Citi Field on Saturday (box score), leaving them two games behind the Cubs for the second National League wild-card spot.

Pete Alonso crushed his 41st home run of the season 451 feet to dead-center field in the fifth, tying the Mets franchise record for most homers in a single season (Todd Hundley, 1996; Carlos Beltran, 2006).

Pitching

Zack Wheeler picked up two strikeouts (Ronald Acuna Jr. and Freddie Freeman) in a scoreless first, working around a four-pitch, one-out walk to Ozzie Albies.

Matt Joyce and Adeiny Hechavarria drew consecutive bases-on-balls to start the second and Atlanta’s newest addition, Francisco Cervelli, made Wheeler pay for his transgressions with a two-RBI double down the right-field line, staking the Braves to an early 2-0 lead.

Wheeler hit another snag in the third, allowing a solo homer to Albies with one out and another to Josh Donaldson later in the frame, giving Atlanta a 4-0 lead. Neither offerings were necessarily bad pitches (low-middle changeup to Albies, inside-paint two-seamer to Donaldson), but the damage was done, regardless.

Cervelli added a leadoff single in the fourth and Acuna reached on an Amed Rosario fielding error leaving runners on the corners with two outs for Albies, who popped out to Davis in shallow left field to end the threat.

After a perfect fifth — Wheeler’s first such inning of the evening — the 29-year-old right-hander entered the sixth at 86 pitches. Atlanta tied the game at five after Rafael Ortega‘s RBI single scored Cervelli, who reached on a Todd Frazier fielding error, and Wheeler finished the frame at 108 pitches, ending his evening (six innings, four runs, five hits, three strikeouts, four walks).

Left-hander Luis Avilan worked around a two-out, pitch-around walk to Donaldson in a scoreless seventh but righty Brad Brach gave up back-to-back-to-back two-out singles to Ortega, Billy Hamilton, and Acuna to put Atlanta ahead, 7-5, in the eighth.

Edwin Diaz allowed a leadoff solo homer to Freeman in the ninth, extending Atlanta’s lead to 8-5, issued a one-out walk to Charlie Culberson, then exited the game after Mets trainers and manager Mickey Callaway visited the mound at Ramos’ urging.

Chris Flexen replaced Diaz, retired Hechavarria, but allowed a two-out, RBI single to Cervelli to give the Braves a 9-5 lead.

Offense

Michael Conforto sent a hard groundball through the shift to lead off the second and advanced on Max Fried‘s wild pitch to Wilson Ramos in the next at-bat but was left stranded in scoring position by Ramos (groundout), J.D. Davis (strikeout), and Todd Frazier (groundout).

Juan Lagares led off the third with a double into right field, moved to third on Rosario’s one-out single, and came home with the Mets’ first run on Joe Panik‘s fielder’s choice groundout, cutting Atlanta’s lead to 4-1.

Lagares added his second double of the night, a line drive into the left-center gap, with one out in the fifth. After advancing to third on Fried’s second wild pitch of the night, Rosario drove him home with a two-out single through the right side, making it a 4-2 game.

Panik added a single in the next at-bat, bringing Pete Alonso to the plate as the go-ahead run. Both runners advanced on Fried’s third wild pitch, and Alonso tied the Mets’ franchise single-season home run record with his 41st blast of the year to give the Mets a 5-4 lead and bring Citi Field to life.

Ramos extended his hitting streak to 18 games with his leadoff single in the sixth but was left stranded by Davis, Frazier, and Lagares.

Jeff McNeil (hamstring) returned from the 10-day injured list with a first-pitch, pinch-hit double to lead off the seventh but was tagged out attempting to advance on Rosario’s groundball to shortstop (after presumably being instructed to bunt McNeil over, digging himself in an 0-2 hole).

Down 7-5, Ramos added his second hit of the night with two outs in the eighth but the Mets couldn’t capitalize. McNeil laced his second hit of the game down the first-base line with two outs in the ninth.

On Deck

Steven Matz (8-7, 4.18 ERA) takes the hill for the Mets in their series finale versus Dallas Keuchel (4-5, 4.14 ERA) and the Braves on Sunday at 1:10 PM.

The game will be televised on WPIX and broadcast on WCBS 880 AM.