From the very first batter he faced, it was clear that Thursday night would not be a typical Jacob deGrom day.
If not for some late inning heroics to tie the game, he would have gotten a loss, but Dom Smith’s first multi-homer game flipped that script. Instead, the loss went to Seth Lugo, whose costly error sparked the Braves’ 4-3 walk-off win.
Lugo made an errant throw to first while falling to the ground fielding Guillermo Heredia’s infield bleeder in the ninth inning. Heredia came around to score on Freddie Freeman’s single that banked off Lugo’s foot, putting the finishing touches on a wild night and a decisive inning when the ball never left the infield.
To begin the night’s oddities, the Braves had a different face at the top of the order. Ronald Acuña Jr. was scratched from the lineup before the game with mid-back tightness. His replacement, Ehire Adrianza, led off for Atlanta and fouled a ball off his foot. A lengthy delay ensued, and when Adrianza climbed into the box again, he did something that none of the previous 37 hitters that faced deGrom in the first inning could do. He got on base.
Adrianza’s triple down the right-field line snapped deGrom’s immaculate run of first inning dominance — the longest such streak in the last 90 seasons. Two batters later, Ozzie Albies’ torrid bat drove in the first run of the season against deGrom in the first inning. Then, to make things even stranger, the Braves got two more.
Austin Riley found himself in an 0-2 hole, typically a death sentence for hitters against No. 48 in blue. Instead of getting atomized, though, Riley sent deGrom’s trademark, glove side fastball over the right-field wall. It was just the fourth homer of deGrom’s year, and Atlanta’s three-run eruption left him with an ERA all the way up at 0.95 by night’s end.
When the inning came to a close, deGrom was animated in the dugout, slamming his glove and having some fiery words with catcher James McCann. It was a rare display of emotion for the stoic, oftentimes robotic pitcher, but also indicative of the struggles he was enduring for the first time in months.
Neither team scored for the next five innings, as both deGrom and Braves’ starter Ian Anderson settled in smoothly. The Mets had the first tally of the game on a Michael Conforto first-inning single. The next 12 hitters would go down hit-less until McCann stroked a line drive into center field.
They finally got to Anderson again in the seventh, when Smith clattered a hanging change-up. Smith’s first homer of the night landed 406 feet from home plate and halted his streak of 50 straight plate appearances without clearing the fence. The Mets put ducks in the pond again in the eighth, but to no avail.
The third pitch of the ninth inning brought the teams back to even terms. This one was a hanging slider from Atlanta closer Will Smith, and his namesake tucked it just inside the right-field foul pole for his second big fly of the evening, taking deGrom off the hook.
Rojas’ ace wasn’t bad by any means, just not as autocratic as usual. Facing a first and third jam in the bottom of the second, deGrom struck out three in a row to snuff out a potential game-breaking rally. In fleeing the second inning, deGrom ignited a stretch where he sat down 18 straight batters, finished off with two sparkling defensive plays from Luis Guillorme and Francisco Lindor and aided by 11 strikeouts.
He’d bail after seven innings — replaced by a pinch hitter in the top of the eighth — having struck out 14 Braves total and incurring no damage after the first inning mini debacle. That resembled the deGrom everybody has come to expect, but he’d already spotted the enemy three runs. The Mets wouldn’t overcome this until the final frame, and Lugo couldn’t hold the line once the game was knotted up. The NL East leaders dropped to 41-36, tightening their ever-shrinking lead in the division.
