This felt like the lowest moment of the 2024 Mets season so far — and they began the season winless in five games.
Because it began with such a high. With Christian Scott wearing a pair of silver headphones and youthfully and unselfconsciously bopping to his rap mix at his locker. It began with the anticipation of his first Citi Field start and his first two innings of power and dominance only heightened the imagination.
That brought swelling ovations from the home crowd.
And it ended with the Mets nearly being no-hit by Max Fried and company. It ended with a 4-1 loss — their 12th in the last 18 games. It ended with the Braves serving one of those large reminders — as they seemingly do annually — that the Mets are not in their weight class.
That brought persistent booing over the final three frames.
Scott acquitted himself fine over six-plus innings. He has a fastball that really plays and a confidence that won’t quit and some day that might be part of a formula that helps the Mets outdo Atlanta. Just not today. Probably not in 2024. Again.
The Mets kind of knew this coming into this season. That they were playing the long game, refusing to clog future payrolls or rosters, but still insisting that they were good enough to make the playoffs.
One-quarter of the way through this year, they are seven games behind Atlanta and nine behind the Phillies, the two teams with the NL’s best records. The two clubs that along with the Dodgers form the SuperPowers of the league. The Mets are not members of the NL East this year when it comes to thinking of the playoffs. They are with all the teams that are going to finish behind the Dodgers in the NL West and the non-division winners in the NL Central.
For now, at 18-20, they are remarkably meh. They have scored 164 runs and given up the same. They are in the wild-card hunt because behind the NL SuperPowers, there is a swamp of these kinds of clubs.
“We have one of those teams right now that we can look really good for a stretch and we can look not so good for a stretch, depending on the quality of our starts and if the offense is clicking in a given week,” Adam Ottavino said. “We have had games where we look really good in both areas and times when we don’t. I think we are right where we should be record-wise based on how we have played.”
The Mets had been at breakeven before the Braves won the first two games of what is a seven-game run against just Atlanta and Philadelphia that could veer this season into a bad direction. On Friday night, Jose Quintana could not contain the Braves’ power. On Saturday, the Mets could not solve Fried, who no-hit them for seven innings. There were a few walks and a few hard-hit balls, but it was not until J.D. Martinez launched his first Mets homer with two outs in the ninth off Raisel Iglesias that the Mets managed a hit and avoided becoming the first no-hit victim of the Braves in 30 years.
In his pregame session with reporters in the Citi Field press conference room prior to Saturday’s game, Mendoza spoke at his table while a muted TV played nearby replaying the top of the third from the evening before. That was when the Braves hit three homers in four batters against Quintana.
The gist of Mendoza’s press conference was about Kodai Senga and Scott, two pitchers who might not be able to help the Mets’ near impossible chances to overtake the Phillies and Braves in 2024, but hold a substantial meaning as to whether the Mets can actually get to the 80-something wins that will be needed to land a wild card.
In the most idealized version, Scott will prove real, Senga will rejoin the rotation in a month in a form similar to the second half of last season and Luis Severino will stay healthy and in his current state to provide the Mets a big rotation threesome. But Mendoza sounded ambiguous and perhaps a bit mystified about Senga slowing down his shoulder rehab because he feels out of sorts mechanically.
Scott, though, was encouraging. He went 1-2-3 in a nine-pitch first that had four swings and misses. But after a scoreless second that included his third strikeout of this game, Scott allowed Michael Harris II to end a 0-for-29 streak with a single and on a 2-0 fastball Orlando Arcia smacked a two-run homer. Harris added an RBI single in the fourth. Scott responded by retiring the next seven batters before going walk, single to open the seventh and get lifted.
Scott through two major league starts and 14 strikeouts (only Matt Harvey with 18 had more for the Mets in his first two starts) does not seem overwhelmed by being in the majors. The tout on him was he was Grade A in both sweeper and swagger, and so far both have been overt. It didn’t stop a familiar condition for a Mets pitcher over the years — a loss to the Braves.
But the Mets can’t think of themselves in the Braves’ division or class in 2024. The same with the Phillies. They are trying to be atop the next level and find a way into the playoffs where short-series surprises can happen. It is more difficult to see how they get there unless the first two starts by Scott are a preview of what he can offer the rest of the way.
