The Mets met up Wednesday afternoon with four “old friends,” one of those baseball phrases meant to refer to players who used to be on your team and are now trying to defeat your team. The four old friends all wore Braves uniforms. The parties did not lunch together.
Travis d’Arnaud [1], a Met from 2013 until 2019, albeit hardly at all after 2017 [2], walked with the bases loaded to begin the Braves’ scoring in the sixth. It had been 0-0 until then. Tylor Megill [3] was throwing his usual shutout through five, his customary no-hitter through four. Then Megill loaded the bases and left, replaced by Adam Ottavino [4]. Was Ottavino, pitching for a third consecutive day, the right choice? The right choice was not having the bases loaded.
Some choices aren’t yours to make. Ottavino walked d’Arnaud, gave up a double to Adam Duvall and then threw a wild pitch to score d’Arnaud. Quickly, old friend Travis made a trip around the bases, his RBI and his R sandwiching four runs. And the Braves weren’t done dining out on our matinee largesse.
Guillermo Heredia [5], a Met for literally a week in 2020, walked in that same sixth inning. By then, it was 5-0. Heredia would come around as d’Arnaud did, making the score 7-0. The Mets might have been on the board had Guillermo not climbed the right field wall and taken away what looked like it could have been a home run from Jeff McNeil in the second. Maybe McNeil’s ball wouldn’t have left the yard. If it hadn’t, it wouldn’t have hit the wall and put Jeff on base. The only thing it hit was the pocket of Heredia’s glove. Guillermo made a one-handed catch. The defender’s other hand was busy clutching the top of the fence to ensure he’d steady himself while committing highway robbery in broad daylight. It was one of those catches, the kind that demands a surfeit of clichés.
Later, in the eighth, Heredia, who wasn’t scheduled to be in the Braves’ lineup until practically the last minute, whacked a two-run homer than no fielder — not even himself — was going to catch. That made it Braves 9 Mets 1. You might say he did in a day against the Mets more than he did in a week for the Mets (though he did have a pretty decent stretch that fleeting week that quiet year [6]).
Ian Anderson did most of the pitching for Atlanta. He didn’t used to be a Met. Two relievers Brian Snitker deployed did. Collin McHugh [7], who wore the orange and blue in 2012 [8] and 2013 (traded before d’Arnaud was promoted), faced seven batters, retired five of them and gave up no runs. Darren O’Day [9], a Met in April of 2009 who was packed off for distant precincts before May [10] of 2009, finished up. He allowed a home run to Luis Guillorme [11], which is something hardly anybody does, but Darren was protecting an eight-run lead in the ninth, so he didn’t have to stress his gopher. O’Day has been a big leaguer since 2008. He hasn’t lasted this long sweating the small stuff. He overcame Luis’s blast and survived on the mound to receive a “nice game” handshake from his catcher d’Arnaud the instant it ended.
The Braves, featuring their four former Mets, whacked the Mets but good [12], 9-2 splitting their four-game set at Citi Field and showing enough of a pulse not to be written off after one-sixth of a season. Then again, the Mets still haven’t lost a series, still lead the division by a bunch and, save for the bullpen experiencing its intermittent moment of fragility (both Sean Reid-Foley and Travis May are on the IL and neither Ottavino nor Trevor Williams was impressive) and nobody besides Guillorme (three career home runs in five seasons) showing much power in the homestand finale, they’re doing all right.
Which is to say Atlanta can have our former Mets. I’ll stick with our current Mets.