The Mets lost 5-2 to the Braves on Friday night in Atlanta in the opener of this crucial three-game series, and the teams are now tied for first place in the NL East.
By winning one of the remaining two games, however, the Mets would clinch the season series and the divisional tiebreaker, which could be a difference-maker.
Here are five takeaways...
1) Jacob deGrom couldn’t deliver the ace-worthy performance the Mets needed, giving up three solo home runs while pitching six innings.
Austin Riley and Matt Olson hit back-to-back no-doubters in the second inning, giving the Braves a 2-1 lead, and after deGrom pitched with dominance over the next few innings, Dansby Swanson took him deep in the sixth to make it 3-1.
By that point, deGrom had 10 strikeouts and still looked strong, despite the mistake-pitches that cost him the long balls -- a hanging slider to Riley, fastballs in the middle of the plate to Olson and Swanson.
Yet Buck Showalter pulled deGrom after six innings and 86 pitches, and that decision proved costly when Tylor Megill gave up two runs in the top of the seventh, making the score 5-1. It was a curious move not to push deGrom, considering the importance of the game, but Showalter said after the game that deGrom had a blister forming and a cut cuticle.
It was the 58th time in his career deGrom reached 10 strikeouts in a game, only two behind Tom Seaver for most all-time by a Mets pitcher.
However, by giving up three runs in six innings, on the heels of his clunker in Oakland last Saturday, deGrom's ERA stands at 3.08, which seems unthinkably high as easy as he was blowing away hitters when his season began in July.
2) The Mets’ offense continues to sputter, doing little until a ninth-inning rally against Kenley Jansen gave them a chance to steal the win. But with the bases loaded rookie Francisco Alvarez struck out swinging, as did Tyler Naquin to end the game.
Other than that, they were fortunate to score a run in the second inning, thanks to left fielder Eddie Rosario apparently losing Jeff McNeil’s liner in the lights and later failing to make an ankle-high catch of Luis Guillorme’s soft liner that was ruled a run-scoring single.
The only other run came on Tomas Nido’s solo home run in the eighth inning.
Francisco Lindor went 0-for-4 as his 13-game hitting streak came to an end.
3) Alvarez had a chance to be a hero in his major league debut as the Mets’ DH. Showalter showed confidence by sticking with him in the ninth inning (he was 0-for-3 by then) against the right-handed Jansen with the bases loaded and one out, but Alvarez wasn’t up to the task, striking out on three pitches.
It ended a rough debut for Alvarez, who went 0-for-4 and failed three times to get a hit with runners in scoring position.
He did smoke a ball in his very first at-bat against lefty starter Max Fried, but the one-hopper was right to Riley at third base, who turned it into a 5-4-3 double play.
4) The Mets seemed to catch a break when Fried was forced to leave his start after five dominant innings, feeling ill, according to the Braves. The lefty had retired 10 straight hitters at that point, mixing his big-breaking curve with a fastball that he kept on the corners.
However, the Braves showed the depth they have in their bullpen by holding the Mets to one run with four different relievers the rest of the way.
Collin McHugh and Raisel Iglesias pitched scoreless innings in the sixth and seventh. Nido got to lefty A.J. Minter for a solo home run in the eighth but then Jansen finished off the Mets to get the save.
5) Eduardo Escobar continued to swing a hot bat. His 2-for-3 night means he has five hits in his last six at-bats, going back to his heroic night on Wednesday at Citi Field against the Miami Marlins.
As such, he hit .340 for the month of September, and when he came up with two runners on in the ninth, Jansen chose to pitch him very carefully and finally walk him.