The Atlanta Braves lost to the New York Mets on Monday night. That’s now seven losses to the Mets this season, which means that Atlanta has officially dropped the season series to New York for the first time since 2017. It’s kind of wild that this was the year for that streak to end but baseball’s a strange sport and the Mets have still played the Braves pretty tough over the course of that time so this was bound to happen at some point.
Anyways, Atlanta’s fate was nearly sealed in the first inning alone when the Mets tagged Bryce Elder for five runs in that one inning. With that being said, it was certainly strange how they ended up getting to those five runs. The game got off to a weird start in the first place when Elder gave up what was initially ruled a ground rule double out to right field after Ronald Acuña Jr. declared a ball that ended up under the wall as unplayable.
Following a replay challenge review, the umpires eventually determined that the ball had not been lodged below the wall — it had stopped but it wasn’t stuck. “The ruling was the ball was not lodged but the fact that the umpire more-or-less finished the play with a ruling of two bases meant that they kept the runner at second instead of third,” explained Walt Weiss when he was asked about it after the game.
“You can make a case that the ground rule needs to be changed, there,” continued Weiss when he was asked about the ground rule. “Ronald from his vantage point, it’s almost like the ball disappears. He’s up above it and the ball is kind of underneath the wall, so it’s a tough play.”
To Bryce Elder’s credit, he took full responsibility in the post-game press conference and didn’t make any excuses for what happened out there during his rough outing. It started to get very rough once a play that sure looked like it could’ve been a strike-em-out, throw-em out moment that instead ended up turning into a walk. Bryce Elder appeared to have signaled for a challenge but the home plate umpire Cory Blaser didn’t grant it and so the inning continued on.
If you look closely at the clip above, you can see Elder tap his head and point at Sean Murphy as if to say that he should tap his head as well. Instead, no tapping was acknowledged, the Mets kept their rally going and then Brett Baty blew the game open with a grand slam that put the Mets firmly in control.
Again, Elder held himself accountable for the whole ordeal. “If I don’t put one on a tee there for Brett then it’s a whole different conversation,” admitted Elder. “We can look at the challenge and look at this and look at that but at the end of the day, I’ve got to make a better pitch to Baty there and then we don’t have to have that conversation.”
It was also unfortunate to see all that damage being done with two outs. In fact, all seven of the runs that Elder gave up on Monday night happened while two outs were on the board. Elder current has a 6.10 ERA with two outs on the board so far this season as opposing batters are hitting .280/.356/.470 with a wOBA of .361 in that situation. For comparison’s sake, the league average is a 4.86 ERA with a slash line of .234/.317/.384 with a .310 wOBA. All of those numbers are below average for Elder and he’s aware of that and also how it’s been a bit of a pattern in his career.
“For my whole career, it’s one of those things where when I’m good, I’m good with two outs. When I’m bad, I’m bad with two outs. It’s pretty black-and-white as far as whether I need to make better or do a different pitch but whatever it may be, I’m not sure,” explained Elder when I asked him about his issues with two outs. “Yeah, definitely this year when I’ve struggled and things go south it’s with two outs. Being able to make that pitch to get out of an inning is important so hopefully I will be better at it moving forward.”
It was certainly a rough night for Elder and it’s certainly been one of those seasons that we’re becoming used to now where he has peaks that see him peering over all of baseball and valleys that make you wonder just what on Earth is going on with him. Monday was probably the weirdest night of the season yet for Elder and it was certainly frustrating to watch — much less to actually experience it like he and the rest of the Braves did.
Hopefully this’ll be a blip and that Elder will continue to bounce back moving forward since it’s apparent that the Braves are going to need him in some big moments both down the stretch and possibly in October as well. We’ll see what happens.
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