ATLANTA — I have seen this horror movie before and the Mets don’t get out of this haunted house alive.
The cast changes — for both sides — and the set changes as the Braves move ballparks every 20 years or so. But the results?
It is not just that the Mets came to Atlanta and lost on Tuesday night. It is that it all looked familiar. They played poorly in every phase. The Braves played well. Atlanta center fielder Michael Harris was such a Met-killing Chipper off the old block that you could convince me he is going to name his next born child Citi.
The final of the opener of this pivotal series was 5-1 and when Game 2 might be played — Wednesday, Thursday or part of a doubleheader next Monday (a.k.a. the day after the regular season should be ending and the day before the playoffs should be beginning) is in doubt.
The Mets’ wild-card lead over the Braves was sliced to one on the same day that Georgia governor Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency, bracing for Tropical Storm Helene, which may hit land as a Category 3 hurricane. It is supposed to rain heavily Wednesday and biblically Thursday. Thus, the downpour the Mets and their owner, Steve Cohen, have been envisioning — of champagne — might not arrive in Atlanta (if at all).
The Mets could assure a wild card and that celebration with two victories against the Braves. But if the Braves win once more against the Mets, it would give them the season series and the playoff tiebreaker if the two clubs finished tied.
Whenever it may come (if it comes), Cohen is so hungry for his first champagne dousing as Mets owner that despite agreeing to host his 50th high school reunion at Citi Field on Saturday, he plans to skip it if the Mets can clinch that day in Milwaukee. When the Mets were wild cards in 2022, they had a champagne toast. That is because in the penultimate series of the year, they were swept out of first place in Atlanta and, thus, the runner-up celebration was muted when it came.
Before the first pitch Tuesday in the penultimate series of this season, Cohen had insisted that bad mojo from playing in this city was not in his current group’s muscle memory because the roster had changed so much in two years. But everything from the ballpark to the players to Mets ownership had been altered since 1998-99 when, first, the Braves swept the Mets in the final series of 1998 to keep them from the postseason and then eliminated them in NLCS Game 6 in 1999.
The faces change. Not the theme. The Braves moved to the NL East in 1994 and since have won 18 division titles and two World Series while the Mets have two division crowns and no championships. The Mets are now 25-37 at Truist.
“We didn’t play well,” Carlos Mendoza acknowledged. “We have to turn the page. I know it is going to be a story because it is here in Atlanta. We have to go out and do it. We are still in a position to go out and win a series here.”
Perhaps the Mets will be better positioned for a rewrite. After not starting for an eighth straight game due to a back ailment, Lindor was in the on-deck circle as the series opener ended and is in play to start if there is a game Wednesday.
As for Tuesday, the tone was set in the first inning. The Mets were retired 1-2-3 on seven Spencer Schwellenbach pitches. The Braves also did not score, but Harris fouled off five two-strike pitches before a single and Luisangel Acuña botched a double-play ball, leading to Severino throwing 25 pitches.
Schwellenbach, a rotation savior after rocketing up the minors, held the Mets to no hits in six at-bats with men on base and just a Mark Vientos homer in seven innings. In four innings, Severino endured 33 foul balls, 14 with two strikes as the Braves expertly extended at-bats. In the third, the pitcher and Francisco Alvarez collided on a swinging bunt and Severino errantly threw the ball down the line. Before the inning was over, Starling Marte would airmail a cutoff man. In between, Harris would double in the first run in a three-run frame. He homered in the next inning and made a diving catch to rob Acuña of a hit in the inning after that.
Now, the Mets will have to deal with NL Cy Young frontrunner Chris Sale and longtime Atlanta ace Max Fried, weather permitting.
“They’re a good team,” Brandon Nimmo said. “They’re not just going to roll over and die for you. So, we know that we’re up for a challenge.”
As we know, the nightmare killer never rolls over and just dies in this kind of movie. Still, Nimmo also dismissed the ghosts of Atlanta, mentioning the changing cast from two years ago as well. It is more than two years, though. It is a quarter of a century of one team owning another. The Mets of Cohen/David Stearns/Mendoza are trying to prove it is a new day.
In the horror movie, the advice is never to go back into the haunted house. The Mets have returned. Can they write a different script?
