America celebrates 250th anniversary by watching Mets declare independence from run prevention

Braves 14 Mets 3 (Truist Park, Cobb County, GA)

Mets record: 36-53

Mets streak: Lost 3

WP - Chris Sale (9-6)

LP - Sean Manaea (1-4)

SV - J.R. Ritchie (1)

Seat on the Korner: Eli White

We select a Star of the Game and virtually invite him to take his Seat on the Korner — just as Ralph Kiner did on WOR-TV Channel 9 during the early days of the New York Mets.

Continuing the tradition of Rheingold Beer sponsoring Kiner’s Korner, this season every seat is proudly presented by The Main Event Restaurant & Sports Bar.

With locations in Plainview and Farmingdale, The Main Event features 80+ HD TVs, fresh daily seafood, and Black Angus certified steaks—so you never have to choose between great food and the big game.

Eli White continued his dominion over Sean Manaea on Saturday night. He had a home run in the 2nd inning and a 3 run double in the 3rd on a play which may have featured some serious home cookin' by the scorer. But hey, 4 RBI are 4 RBI. White was the statistical leader for the Braves in a win over the Mets who probably beat themselves more than anything tonight.

Need to Know

• Eli White's home run off Sean Manaea in the 2nd was the first home run he hit, and the first home run that Manaea gave up, since White's homer off Manaea on June 13th of this season.

• Chris Sale is now 79-0 when he is given a five-run lead.

• Sale also became the 10th pitcher in major league history to strike out 500 hitters with three different teams when he struck out Mark Vientos in the second inning.

• Tyrone Taylor's home run in the 5th was the first homer that Chris Sale had given up in 47 innings.

• Sean Manaea threw 5 innings and gave up 6 runs on 6 hits and a walk while striking out 4 hitters. He threw a season high 108 pitches.

• The Mets had the bases loaded in the 8th with two outs down by seven runs, but J.R. Ritchie struck out Francisco Lindor to end the threat.

• The Braves hit five home runs on Saturday after hitting four home runs on Friday. That's 9 home runs in two games against the Mets after the Braves hit 20 home runs from June 2nd through July 1st (25 games).

• Austin Riley hit his first home run in 36 games in the 8th inning, which led the Mets to bring in Luis Torrens to pitch the rest of the way. Torrens would give up a home run to Michael Harris II.

• Ritchie pitched the final three innings for the automatic save ... the first save or Ritchie's major league career.

Turning Point

Admittedly, the actual turn had already started with Eli White's home run in the 2nd, and continued turning with Michael Harris' RBI hit in the third with two outs and the bases loaded. But this play ... this was the one where the Braves finished rotating the wheel and hit the gas.

Our text chain likes to point out the microcosms of the Mets' 2026 season. By unofficial count, this makes 57 microcosms, which I believe is a macrocosm. Two more macrocosms and you get a free order of small fries at your participating McDonald's.

Three Keys

Accept No Substitutes

Remember when Sean Manaea tweaked his delivery to be more like Chris Sale in 2024? Remember when he matched Sale inning for inning down the stretch that season and helped lead the Mets to the NLCS, and then got a 3 year contract out of it? Yeah, those were fun times.

Watching both pitchers work at this point in time looks like Chris Sale going up against a guy trying to imitate Chris Sale's delivery in an intersquad game to get his hitters prepared for a playoff matchup against him. Sale is hitting 99 on the gun while Manaea's fastball is barely scraping 88 and he's throwing letter high changeups with a sign that says "hit me."

It's a shame, because I really like Manaea. Always have. He was a warrior in '24. But while he's making strides to be serviceable again, it's a struggle for him now. The best thing you can say about him is that he's taking bullets for the team, working through 100+ pitches to take a small amount of stress away from the bullpen. He's being his best warrior even when he doesn't have his best stuff.

Dylan Makes the Sale

The Mets actually got to Sale in the 5th and 6th. Tyrone Taylor hit a solo shot off him in the 5th, and Mark Vientos tagged him with a two-run shot in the 6th. That was followed by a single by Eric Wagaman, and an 11 pitch at-bat to Francisco Alvarez which ended with a hit by pitch.

Walt Weiss then pulled Sale for Dylan Lee, who took the same amount of pitches to get the next three hitters as Sale threw to Alvarez.

And he struck out the side at that. That's the closest the Mets would be all night.

A Birthday Present for America

On this day in 1985, the Mets played an awesome 16-13 game in Atlanta which featured Keith Hernandez hitting for the cycle, Rick Camp hitting a home run off Tom Gorman in the 18th inning, and Ron Darling striking out Camp in the 19th inning to end a wild victory ... one of the craziest and most entertaining games that this country has ever seen in its 250 years as an independent country.

On this, the 250th anniversary of our United States, and the 41st anniversary of that 19-inning game, the Mets gave America the best birthday present of all: They didn't make us watch them play for 19 innings. I could barely handle 8 and 1/2 innings of this nonsense. I felt bad enough that the Cubs/Cardinals audience had to endure us until the Eli White "double" before their game started after a rain delay. That meant that the entire country got the opportunity to witness that lunacy before 3/4's of the country flipped over to the other game and were spared the rest of our stupidity.

Think about it this way: The Brooklyn Bridge was set on fire tonight ... and it was still only the second largest fire involving New York behind this dumpster fire. Happy Birthday, 'Merica.