By a 7-3 final, the Mets downed the Braves in the rubber match of a series that felt as pivotal as a 3-game set possibly can prior to the All-Star break, but what does it mean?
Would Braves fans have liked to see a series victory over the Mets at home, obviously, but what Atlanta did in the weeks leading up to the series ensured that the result wasn’t going to make or break the race in the NL East.
A short time ago, the Mets held a 10.5 game lead in the division entering the month of June. Since then, Brian Snitker’s club has been playing their best baseball, and even after dropping the series, the Mets' lead is just 2.5 games as they head back to Queens.
12 meetings remain between the NL East rivals before the regular season wraps up in October including the penultimate regular season series—a three-game set at Trust Park. Nevertheless, the loss today will still sting, and there are lessons to be learned from this series.
“You don’t know how this thing is going to shake out, but I do think that if you were doubting that ‘oh, the Mets aren’t any good’ or ‘they’re going to choke this away’, they showed you that they’re a really good club,” Carl Dukes said on 92.9 The Game’s Dukes & Bell after the loss.
Dukes also lamented the fact that the Braves starting pitching was inferior to the Mets over the past three games with Max Fried, Spencer Strider and Charlie Morton each failing to make it past the fifth inning while the Mets starters shut down the Braves lineup even without Jacob deGrom. Dukes went on to say that overcoming the mental hurdle of beating a surging Braves team was a big deal for New York.
In for Mike Bell, Mark Zinno has argued since the start of the series that fans shouldn’t overreact to the result, regardless of which way the series went.
“I didn’t want to make too much of this series when we started, so let’s not turn this into some sort of harbinger or signal of how the rest of the season may go or how the season series against the Mets may go—it’s three games. You got a good test,” he said.
The Braves aren’t limping into the break by any stretch and have a chance to bounce back with a four-game set against the Nationals before five members of the roster head out to LA for the All-Star game.
