ATLANTA – This was a game that followed the course of last season’s National League Championship Series. The Mets didn’t start playing until the outcome had been all but decided.
Sure, the Mets put three runs on the board in the eighth inning of a 6-3 loss, after Greg Maddux had thrown his last pitch and before adored-in-Atlanta closer John ‘Punk’ Rocker had thrown his first.
By that time, the Braves had built such a comfortable lead the comeback, just as last autumn’s comeback from a three-games-to-none deficit to push the series to Game 6, was hollow.
Nothing hollow about the comeback of Rocker in the hearts of Georgians. Even former President Jimmy Carter, seated in the front row behind the Atlanta on-deck circle, joined in the standing ovation for Rocker, the heat-throwing Ku Klux Kloser who throws left and leans right.
The ovation started when Braves manager Bobby Cox went to the mound and signaled for a lefty. It mounted when the gate on the outfield fence in right-center field swung open. It reached a peak when Scooby Doo sprinted to the mound with the urgency of a dog chasing a rabbit.
The Mets made it look good, scoring three runs in the eighth to pull within three runs. Then Rocker entered with two men on base and two outs to face Bubba Trammel, pinch-hitting for Mike Bordick.
Ball One, then a 93 mph fastball Trammell popped high in the air. Shortstop Walt Weiss chased it onto the outfield grass and caught it to trigger another ovation for Rocker, rounding into form at just the right time to give the Braves reason to believe they can make it back to the World Series.
Rocker earned his 23rd save in 25 chances. He has not allowed a run in his past nine games, covering 10 innings, and has struck out 15 batters during that stretch.
He’s back and so is his immense popularity.
This game was over long before Rocker came in to save it. It’s almost as if the Mets made it tougher on themselves by mounting a comeback. Their rally meant that they had to suffer through a reminder that the Braves have a closer who is of the same caliber as their vaunted rotation, a closer with a wicked breaking ball with which he struck out Benny Agbayani and mid-’90s heat.
While fretting over the return to glory of Rocker, add one more scene to the horror film that is the Mets’ history at Turner Field.
Second inning. Scoreless ballgame. Andres Galarraga broke from third and Walt Weiss squared to bunt and dropped a beauty on the grass to the first-base side of the mound.
Mike Hampton, the Mets’ athletic left-hander, bounded off the mound, fielded the ball while falling down and fired a throw wide of Mike Piazza. The run scored. Weiss ended up at second base.
“Biggest play of the game,” Chipper Jones said.
Since this was at Turner Field and bad things always happen to the Mets at The Ted and since Hampton contorted his body on the bang-bang play, it was worth wondering: Did Hampton just re-injure the strained oblique muscle and stress fracture of the rib on the play?
He did not. Nor did he fracture his right wrist later when hit by a Galarraga comebacker in the third. It was only bruised. And that was the last good news for the Mets on a night they made that hurdle named the Braves seem taller than ever.
That same inning, the Braves hit Hampton hard, lining three consecutive singles to the outfield, but it was the leadoff walk to Rafael Furcal he most lamented. They rocked him for three runs and were on their way to a 6-3 bullying of the Mets.
The way Greg Maddux has been pitching lately, when the Braves score one run, they become prohibitive favorites to win the game, no matter the opponent.
Maddux ran his consecutive scoreless innings streak to 291/3 innings, before turning the game over to the bullpen, and the Mets ran their recent record at The Ted to 2-19.
The longer the streak of futility extends, the more the Mets are asked about it. The more they deny the past has anything to do with the present, the taller the hurdle stretches. It’s a vicious cycle that can be killed in one way and one way only: The Mets must win the final two games of the series or The Ted will remain little more than a slaughterhouse.
“It’s always big to win the first game of a big series because it establishes the tone for the whole series.” Chipper Jones said.
Same tone set, same tune played.
“From a team perspective, it’s important to win enough games to get in the playoffs,” Hampton said. “That’s the bottom line.”
Translation: Wild card.
Win the wild card and hope the Braves get knocked out in the first round.
