Mets Lose, Drop Series to Braves

Braves 6 Mets 3 (Truist Park , Atlanta, GA)

Mets record: 53-69

Mets streak: Lost 2

WP - Zac Thornton (3-3)

LP - Tyler Mahle ( 4-9)

Seat on the Korner: Ronald Acuna Jr.

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.

Ronald Acuna Jr. is one of those multi-tool players about whom it is often said: He can beat you in so many ways. In tonight's game, Acuna showed off all of his skills, helping to beat the Mets at bat, on the basepaths and in the field. We'll start with the baserunning. After Acuna walked to lead off the third, Drake Baldwin singled to center. Acuna caught Luis Robert Jr. napping in center field by faking that he was going to hold at second and then taking off for third, which put him in position to score the Braves' second run on a double play.

In the top of the fifth, Jared Young hit a ball that Acuna appeared to bobble. but Acuna made a quick recovery and got to show off his arm when Young made an ill-advised dash for second:

In the bottom of that inning he had an RBI single, and a double in the seventh when the Braves broke the game open. Acuna has a history of getting hurt -- he's had two stints on the IL this year -- but when he's on the field, he is a player to be reckoned with. So Ralph has a lot to talk about with him.

Need to Know

• The Mets ended the road trip 6-3, sweeping the Guardians in three, taking two out of three from the Pirates and dropping two out of three to the Braves.

• Carson Benge singled to right in the fourth, extending to 16 his consecutive games reaching base streak. Benge went 2-for-4, and since July 25 is hitting .380 (22-26), with nine runs, 10 doubles, one triple, two homers, seven RBI, four walks and two steals.

• They keep statistics on umpires, too, and home plate umpire Andy Fletcher's are pretty bad when it comes to ABS challenges. Fletcher went 3-for-nine in this game, which actually lowered his percentage of calls overturned to 72 percent -- the worst of any umpire not named C.B. Bucknor, who has been out of action since taking a 100MPH Jacob Misiorowski fastball in the mask May 28. In raw numbers, Fletcher is not the most overturned -- Dan Iassogna, with 69 times (out of 110 challenges) holds that distinction -- but Fletcher is approaching that lead, too.

• The Mets are now 28-36 away from Citi Field this season and 18-22 under interim manager Andy Green .

• The Mets have an off-day Thursday as they travel back to New York to face the Nationals at Citi Field for three over the weekend. Robert Stock is scheduled to get the ball for the Mets on Friday. The Nationals have not announced their starter.

  
  

Turning Point

Easy to pick this one: The turning point came when Mets manager Andy Green decided to bring Dedniel Nunez to start the seventh. Luis Robert Jr. had just homered to cut the Braves' lead to a single run, 3-2. Braves manager Walt Weiss sent Mike Yastrzemski up to hit for Lane Thomas, who had homered in the second to start the Braves' scoring. Channeling his Hall of Fame grandfather Carl (the pride of Bridgehampton), Yastrzemski hit Nunez' second pitch over the fence in right center.

But as they say in informercials: that's not all. Up came Austin Riley, somewhat rejuvenated after the All-Star game. And, again on the second pitch, Riley hit one over the fence in left center.

After Nunez benefitted from home plate umpire's sixth overturned call to strike out Sean Murphy, Ronald Acuna Jr. ended Nunez' day with a double. And by the end of the inning, the Braves had a four-run lead.

To put it mildly, Nunez has been awful in three appearances since joining the team after the trade deadline -- three appearances, nine hits, six runs in two and a third innings. Not someone I'd put in the circle of trust.

Three Keys

Mahle Masters Mets

When the Braves traded for Tyler Mahle, rescuing him from the dumpster fire that is this year's San Francisco Giants, they were looking for a hurler who would bring some stability to the rotation. And in two starts, he has performed exactly as they had hoped: Six scoreless innings in his debut last week, six innings tonight in which the only run he yielded was Luis Torrens' solo homer in the sixth.

That was the exact opposite the last time the Mets faced Mahle, back in April, when they roughed him up for five runs and eight hits over five innings when he was a Giant.

Mahle's line tonight: six innings, four hits, one run, seven strikeouts.

Zac Deserved Better

Tonight's start represented the first time Zac Thornton had faced a team for the second time, and while his pitching line looked similar: six innings both times, three runs both times, six hits the first time, seven tonight, he really deserved better. One of the runs scored on a double play. Thornton, who is not a strikeout pitcher, did what he was supposed to do: keep the Mets in the game and hope the bats responded. The first time he faced the Braves, they did. Tonight, they didn't.

The Bats Remain Cold

All three of the Mets' runs came on bases-empty homers, by Luis Torrens, Luis Robert Jr. and Bo Bichette. But beyond that, their bats were largely silent. Other than the homers, they only had a runner in scoring position in the ninth, when Carson Benge doubled to center after the Bichette homer and gave the Mets hope for an improbable comeback. But after Robert walked, Jared young grounded into a fielder's choice, Francisco Alvarez fouled out and Marcus Semien grounded into a game-ending fielder's choice.

We'll show the home runs here, just to give you something positive.