After losing two players to injury and a 6-5 ballgame to the Braves, the Mets wild card hopes are seemingly shattered.
The Amazins fought hard, but injuries to Jose Reyes and Daniel Murphy, ineffective outings by Dillon Gee and Bobby Parnell, and a spectacular effort by the Braves bullpen finished the Mets off.
Terry Collins called on his best starting pitcher to start a critical series finale against the Braves and Gee did not get it done. He ran into a wall in the fifth inning. The Braves tagged him for three runs in that frame, keynoted by back-to-back homeruns hit by Alex Gonzalez and Jose Constanza.
Gee lasted only five innings in which he yielded five earned runs on six hits. He walked three Braves and hit two more.
The makeshift offense without Reyes somehow managed to match Atlanta’s production until late in the game. They managed to scratch out four runs against Mike Minor, and another off of Eric O’Flaherty. Willie Harris, who replaced Reyes offensively, was responsible for two of those runs, with two RBI singles.
But Parnell could not hold the Mets even. After striking out pinch-hitter Brooks Conrad to end a threat in the eighth, he allowed perennial Met-killer Chipper Jones to drive in the go-ahead run in the ninth inning to push the Braves passed the Mets 6-5.
After today’s loss, the Mets drop to one game under .500. They also fall back to nine games behind the Braves in the wild card. The Mets will welcome the Padres to Citi Field for a four game series starting tomorrow night. With injuries to Jose Reyes and Daniel Murphy, the Mets wild card hopes have almost certainly vanished, but there is still baseball to be played.
Injury Notes:
Jose Reyes was pulled in the bottom of the second inning with stiffness in his left hamstring. The All-Star shortstop was placed on the 15-day DL earlier this season with a strain on that same hamstring.
Daniel Murphy was taken out of the game in the top of the seventh inning after he was injured when the spikes of a sliding Jose Constanza caught Murphy's left knee on a stolen base attempt. He had to be helped off of the field. Scott Hairston replaced him offensively.
The Mets showed a vastly different defensive alignment in the top of the eighth to compensate with the injuries. Scott Hairston, who immediately played second after Murphy was injured in the seventh, moved from second base to right field. Lucas Duda shifted from right field to first base. This bumped Nick Evans from first base to third base. David Wright then moved to shortstop, which forced Justin Turner back to second base, where he started.
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