Braves break out the boomsticks as Mets lose in Atlanta for the billionth time

Braves 5 Mets 3 (Truist Park, Cobb County, GA)

Mets record: 36-52

Mets streak: Lost 2

WP - Grant Holmes (5-4)

LP - Christian Scott (2-1)

SV - Raisel Iglesias (17)

Seat on the Korner: Matt Olson

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.

Matt Olson's two home runs were his first in 16 games, meaning the Mets have fixed another visiting player in a 5-3 loss. The Braves had 20 home runs from June 1st until tonight, when they hit four homers to sink the Mets.

Need to Know

• The Mets are now 7-16 since June 9 and 2-11 in their last 13 as they fall 16 games below .500, a 2026 low point.

• A.J. Ewing batted leadoff for the first time in his young career. Ewing went 0-for-3 before being pinch hit for in the 7th but scored a run on Juan Soto's home run after reaching on an error.

• Soto's home run in the 3rd inning was his 15th career home run at Sun Trust/Truist Park.

• The Mets were 8-2 in Christian Scott starts this season coming in to tonight. Scott went four innings only giving up two hits and striking out seven, but he walked four batters, and the two hits were home runs that led to three runs.

• Ozzie Albies' home run in the 3rd was his 23rd against the Mets in the last ten seasons, more than anyone in baseball over that time period.

• Matt Olson ended a 16-game home run drought with his solo shot in the 5th off of A.J. Minter. it was Minter's first earned run given up of the year.

• Olson would add another home run in the 8th off Kodai Senga. It was the 11th home run that Senga has given up this season, but it was the only run Senga gave up in his 2 and 2/3's innings of work tonight.

• Former Met Danny Young made his season debut in the 7th inning and got two outs before walking Soto and being pulled for a righty.

• The Braves bullpen as a whole pitched four scoreless innings in relief of Grant Holmes, who gave up one earned run in five innings tonight.

• Juan Soto's single in the 9th with Luis Torrens on second base was the first Mets hit with a runner in scoring position in 24 at-bats. Bo Bichette made it two hits in a row with RISP to drive in Torrens from third for the Mets third run.

Turning Point

I'm going to fast forward to the end of the game to follow our last bullet point above. The Mets, for the first time all season (seemingly), looked like what the front office had envisioned in the 9th inning, rallying for a run on hits by Juan Soto and Bo Bichette to drive in a run, and set up a matchup between Francisco Lindor and Raisel Iglesias. It evoked shades of Game 161 from 2024, but only if you were on some sort of hallucinogens which erased all sense of reality and context.

Lindor grounded out to end the game, which I'm sure will restart the rift between he and Juan Soto.

Three Keys

Mike is Money

Michael Harris II had the seat until Matt Olson decided to go deep twice. Harris ended a Mets rally in the first inning with this nice running catch:

Harris would continue his mastery of the Mets in the 2nd with a two run homer that for a long stretch was the difference in this game.

It was Harris' 4th career at-bat off of Christian Scott. And hey guess what: It was his fourth career hit off Christian Scott.

Adjustments at Warp Speed

The funny part of all this was that Scott was dominant in the first inning. Ten pitches, nine strikes, 1-2-3 grab some bench. But then in the second he walked Mauricio Dubon to start the inning before giving up the dinger to Harris, and after that he lost the strike zone for a couple of innings, as he was adjusting fast to not give the Braves much in the strike zone.

And when he did, it went a long, long way as evidenced by this moon shot by Albies in the third to make it 3-2 after Juan Soto had tied it up.

Scott went back to being dominant in the 4th with a 1-2-3 inning where he threw 13 pitches, pounded the zone, and trusted his stuff. The 1st and the 4th is the tape that Scott should be studying.

Small Villages Stranded Yet Again

The Mets left 10 runners on base tonight. Included among those ten: Two in the first on the Harris catch in the 1st. Two in the 4th as Luis Torrens left runners on second and third after a two out rally. And the two in the 9th by Lindor on the final out.

I'd love to know ... and I'm too lazy to try to look this up ... how many times the Mets have gotten three hits in a row this season. It seems like something that a good lineup could do somewhat regularly. This team? Up until now they haven't been able to string hits together, and they had ten hits tonight which is great for this team.

Maybe they're coming out of it. They were robbed of some hits tonight, and they hit into some very hard outs in Toronto earlier this week. Maybe an extended stretch of Lindor, Bichette, and Soto in the lineup at the same time will do the trick. Not that the damage hasn't already been done for the season, but I really want to see if the Mets can at least come up with some respectable offensive outings with all three players healthy for a long stretch, with Ewing and Carson Benge concurrently playing well on top of that.