Let’s put a big asterisk on this one right away: There’s no such thing as revenge when one team is a cool 23 games ahead in the standings. The Braves losing a game to the Mets is like getting a mosquito bite on your way to the car after a bug-free picnic: You’ll scowl and maybe scratch at the welt a time or two, but that’s about the extent of it.
But away with your unasked-for asterisks and your downer similes and all the rest of this depressing nonsense, recapper! Do your job! Remind the people that the Mets beat the Braves [1], at White Flight Stadium no less, and it was awesome.
Indeed it was. The game kicked off with a flurry of can-you-top-this defense: Brandon Nimmo [2] and Francisco Lindor [3] started the Mets’ offense with what looked like back-to-back doubles, except Kevin Pillar [4] and Michael Harris II [5] reeled both drives in. (Jeff McNeil [6] then followed with a little excuse-me hit, as a reminder that baseball is inherently ridiculous.) The Mets then did the same thing to the Braves in the bottom of the frame: Ronald Acuna Jr. [7] played the McNeil role with a soft hit against the defense, but Nimmo robbed Harris with a diving catch in center. A double play later, the Braves were somehow not off to a fast start for once and left the field muttering.
The ReplaceMets then stepped up against former Met farmhand Allan Winans [8], who found starting against his old club not quite as easy as it was back in Queens. DJ Stewart [9] mashed a solo homer and Rafael Ortega [10] followed that with a two-run shot, giving the Mets a 3-0 lead. They’d coughed that up by the fourth, not so much because David Peterson [11] was bad as because the Braves are a squad made up of beasts, the most impressive offensive contingent in the game. Still, it was only 4-3 Braves, which felt like something of a moral victory given how things have gone this year.
But for once the Mets were after an actual victory. A walk and four straight singles off Winans was followed by a Stewart safety squeeze (a little too cute, but we’ll allow it) and the Mets had gone up 7-4; an inning later, a three-run shot from Francisco Lindor sealed the deal, with the Braves playing the rest of the game with something of a collective shrug.
One game. A mosquito bite. But it was fun to see the Mets take an actual lead against their tormentors and then dust themselves off and do it again and then run off and hide. OK, maybe it wasn’t magically worth 23 games in the standings. But there are all manner of enchantments, and this one provided a welcome sprinkling of pixie dust over a sticky summer night.