The Braves pounded out 12 hits while the Mets could only muster three solo home runs and struck out nine times as they fell 6-3 in Atlanta on Wednesday night.

Zac Thornton got dinged for three runs in six frames, but once again showed some really solid pitching and the ability to wriggle out of jams as he delivered another efficient outing over six innings in his eighth big-league start, but didn't get support behind him.

New York (53-69) put two aboard with nobody down in the ninth after cutting the deficit to three, but couldn't get the ball out of the infield, finished 0-for-3 with RISP and left five on base on the night. Atlanta improved to 73-48 on the season for a 9.5-game lead at the top of the NL East.

Here are the takeaways...

- Thornton was on his way to an efficient, scoreless two innings, but left a fastball up in the zone to Lane Thomas to hammer into the left-field stands (412 feet, 105.7 mph off the bat) with two down in the second. Thornton got into a spot of bother in the third with a leadoff walk and a smacked single up the middle that put runners on the corners when Ronald Acuńa Jr. deeked Luis Robert Jr. and stole 90 feet. But the lefty traded a second run for a 6-3 double-play and avoided a big inning. That started a run of five straight retired with a strikeout.

That streak ended to start the fifth when Austin Riley ripped a first-pitch heater up and over the plate for a double to left. After Sean Murphy singled, the Braves had runners at the corners, but Thornton tiptoed around the danger. First, he got some help from Acuńa, who, while delivering an RBI single, got caught in no man’s land and was out 7-6-4, before a broken-bat ground-out against a drawn-in infield and a strikeout kept the damage to just one run.

Thornton, the master of efficiency, grabbed his first 1-2-3 frame in the sixth, his final inning of the night, to close his book after allowing three runs on seven hits and a walk with two strikeouts on 80 pitches (47 strikes).

Entering the game, batters out of the eighth and ninth spots in the lineup were hitting .385 against Thornton. The Braves duo of Riley and Murphy went 3-for-4 against the lefty. (For the game, batters in the bottom third of the order went 6-for-11 with three solo HRs and two strikeouts.)

- Tyler Mahle allowed a hit to start the game, but retired the next 11 straight batters with three strikeouts. The right-hander, who Atlanta acquired at the trade deadline, extended his scoreless streak to start his time with his new club to 11 innings before being dinged for a run. He had a good splitter working to play off his fastball, with the first one netting four strikeouts and the other three, and allowing just one run over six innings of work.

- Luis Torrens put the Mets on the board by cranking his fifth home run of the season with an opposite-field blast on the first pitch of the sixth inning off Mahle. He finished the night 1-for-3 with a strikeout looking.

- Robert, hitless in his first two times up, made up for his fielding miscue, rocketing a solo homer to left with one down in the seventh to cut the deficit to one off lefty reliever Dylan Dodd. The 399-foot drive was tattooed at 107.2 mph for a no-doubter, his sixth of the campaign. He finished 1-for-3 with a walk and a strikeout looking.

- Bo Bichette hit two balls hard (95.6 and 95.4 mph), but both for lineouts, and was 0-for-3 before smashing a 405-foot solo homer over the wall in right-center to lead off the ninth against Braves closer Raisel Iglesias. The homer was his 12th of the year.

- Carson Benge smashed a single (105.4 mph) past the first baseman for a two-out single in the fourth and clobbered a double into the right-center gap (105.1 mph) in the ninth to finish 2-for-4.

- Dedniel Núñez got the seventh inning, and in four pitches the Braves had their three-run lead back after the Mets cut it to 3-2, as pinch-hitter Mike Yastrzemski clobbered a center-cut fastball for a solo homer to right (102 mph) and Riley annihilated a hanging slider (438 feet, 108.5 mph) to left. After Acuńa doubled off the wall in right, Núñez's night was over as lefty Jefry Yan entered. A bloop single to left made it a three-run inning before Yan got the next two, including a strikeout swinging.

Jack Weisenburger allowed a two-out double, but added a strikeout in a scoreless eighth inning in his second big league outing.

- A.J. Ewing plopped a base hit into center on the ninth pitch of the at-bat to lead off the game, but he finished 1-for-3 with a walk and a strikeout swinging.

- Jared Young smacked a ball to right to start the fifth that Acuńa knocked down but kept it close to him and gunned down Young trying for two. It took a perfect throw to get him, and that is exactly what happened. Young went 1-for-4, bouncing into a fielder's choice with two men on and nobody out in the ninth.

- Francisco Alvarez struck out looking on a 3-2 pitch that just caught the corner to end the second, went down swinging at a heater at the letters in the fifth, and went down swinging on a pitch below the zone to end the seventh. He finished 0-for-4, popping out in foul ground to first with runners on corners in the ninth.

- Francisco Lindor was hitless in four trips to the plate with a strikeout swinging.

- Brett Baty struck out on a half swing to start third and struck out swinging to end the fifth.

- Marcus Semien flied out to left batting for Baty to start the eighth and bounced out to third to end the game and strand a pair.

- Home plate umpire Andy Fletcher entered the game with 54 overturns on 74 challenges, for a 72.9 percent overturn rate, the highest in baseball. He built on that lead early by going 0-for-4 on challenges through four innings. He would have been wrong again if Robert had tapped his head on a strikeout looking to end the fourth on a ball well off the outside corner. Fletcher finished the game with six calls overturned out of nine total challenges.

Here are the takeaways...

Highlights

Popular in the Community