Mets looking to make new, better memories in Atlanta
Mets outfielder Starling Marte catches a pop fly hit by Atlanta's Marcell Ozuna in the first inning of a game Tuesday in Atlanta. Credit: AP/Jason Allen
ATLANTA - For the Mets, this place has long been the house of horrors - a reminder of past failures and dashed hopes.
In 2022, it was here at Truist Park where a three-game sweep cost them the division, despite having won 101 games. And though it happened 15 miles away at the old Turner Field, fans would be hard-pressed to forget Kenny Rogers walking Andruw Jones with the bases loaded in Game 6 the 1999 NLCS, sending the Mets home. In the 25 years since, it’s as if that incessant, nagging tomahawk chop has followed this organization. So often, it's felt like all roads lead to Atlanta, and for the Mets, Atlanta has been nothing more than a dead end.
It feels too apt, then, that to exorcize these demons, the Mets will have to succeed where they were first created.
And no matter how good they've looked lately, it's going be a tough climb.
Mostly, they're a slave to uncertainty. The race is tight: They entered the day in the second wild card spot, two games ahead of Atlanta and a half-game in front of the Diamondbacks. There’s a tropical storm bearing down on Atlanta, and before the game Carlos Mendoza still had no idea what MLB planned to do (the league was still evaluating scheduling possibilities as of Tuesday afternoon, according to a source - the rain is supposed to start Wednesday, and Tropical Storm Helene is expected to hit the area in earnest on Thursday). Francisco Lindor was still out of the starting lineup with mysterious back pain - so far, a CT Scan, MRI and bone scan haven’t turned up any structural issues.
It should be unnerving. It should be intimidating. Mendoza basically just shrugged.
“It’s a different group, different personnel, and we’ve got to go out there and do it - there’s no other way around it,” he said when asked about the team's history here. “I’m looking forward to it…I’m pretty confident about this group right here. They’ve got grit, they care, they’re resilient. We’ve just got to go out there and compete. No one expected us to be in this position. So here we are and we’ve just got to go in and embrace it and enjoy it.”
There was an understated swagger to his tone, and it’s easy to understand why. Over the past four months, the Mets have shown they have the mettle to roll into a nightmare place and create some nightmares of their own. They came into the day 65-36 in their last 101 games - that .644 winning percentage the best in baseball in that span; they’ve also outscored opponents by 119 runs in that stretch.
It seems to extend beyond Mendoza…all the way down to his rookie shortstop.
Luisangel Acuna said he had about 15 members of his family in attendance Tuesday, and spent pregame swapping jerseys with his brother, Ronald, who’s done for the year. In Luisangel’s mind, there was no question about who the Acunas were rooting for.
“Me,” he said through an interpreter. “They’re saying they’re going to support me because my brother is not playing…He said that if they ended up winning, he was going to post me on Instagram [with] ‘Welcome to Atlanta.’ But I told him we’re not going to lose.”
Little brother even got to flex some muscle pregame, when Ronald wandered over toward the visiting dugout during batting practice. Except Mets co-owner Alex Cohen was there, and she really wanted a photo with both. Meaning, of course, that Atlanta’s former MVP posed with his brother…and Cohen…and an “OMG” sign that Cohen had placed in front of them. Ronald even had his brother’s Mets jersey hanging in his locker Tuesday.
It’s not quite psychological warfare - more like two brothers supporting each other - but the optics were certainly in the Mets’ favor. And anything that can make Truist feel a little more like home and a little less like the fifth circle of hell is probably a good thing for this team. After all, it was around this time two years ago that the Mets, with the division well in their sights, trotted out Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer and Chris Bassitt here and proceeded to get swept. The two teams ended up with the same record, Atlanta took the division by virtue of having the tiebreaker, and the Mets promptly got bounced in the wild-card round.
But, of course, Mendoza wasn't around for that. He was too busy being a bench coach in the Bronx at the time.
“For us, there’s only one way to do it,” he said. “We’ve got to go do it. You’ve got to get it done on the field…It’s right there. Like I said, don’t try to do too much, just keep doing what we’re doing. The rest will take care of itself.”
That’s easier said than done, of course. But the Mets’ past here has done them no favors. This week, they’ll try to forget it long enough to build a future.
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
