Pete Alonso, rested Mets take aim at Braves

FILE PHOTO: May 7, 2024; St. Louis, Missouri, USA; New York Mets first baseman Pete Alonso (20) celebrates with teammates after hitting a solo home run against the St. Louis Cardinals during the ninth inning at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports/File Photo

Thanks to a rainout in St. Louis on Wednesday, the New York Mets’ schedule in August will open with a four-city road trip in which they’ll play 10 games in three time zones.

On Friday, the Mets get a much more familiar but pressing task — figuring out a way to beat their nemesis, the Atlanta Braves.

The Mets will resume their slate and attempt to extend their winning streak to three games on Friday night when they host Atlanta in the opener of a three-game series between the National League East rivals.

Left-hander Jose Quintana (1-3, 5.20 ERA) is slated to start for the Mets against right-hander Charlie Morton (2-0, 3.50).

The Mets haven’t played since Tuesday, when they overcame a three-run first-inning deficit to edge the host St. Louis Cardinals 7-5.

New York’s hopes of sweeping the Cardinals were paused due to heavy rains in the St. Louis area, which forced the finale to be postponed after a 2 1/2-hour delay. The game will be made up Aug. 5, which was originally the lone off-day for the Mets during a West Coast trek.

“It’s part of it,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “It’s what we do. We’ll be ready for it. We’ll worry about that when we get there.”

The state of the Mets — and slugger Pete Alonso in particular — was less worrisome following consecutive wins over the Cardinals. Alonso, who entered Tuesday in a 2-for-37 slump over his previous 11 games, went 2-for-5 with the tie-breaking two-run double in the fifth and an insurance solo homer in the ninth in the 7-5 victory.

“It was really nice to be able to help in the manner that I did,” Alonso said after the Mets won two straight for the first time since a six-game winning streak from Apr. 14-20.

The Braves’ visit to New York will be their first this season. They dropped two of three to the Mets from April 8-11 — Atlanta’s first series loss against its archrivals since August 2022.

Atlanta was off Thursday after completing a two-game interleague sweep of the host Boston Red Sox on Wednesday night, when Marcell Ozuna homered twice in a 5-0 win.

The Braves are hoping those two wins sparked a slumping offense. Atlanta lost six of eight entering the series against Boston, a span in which it averaged just 2.5 runs per game.

Atlanta won Tuesday’s opener 4-2 before Ozuna and Orlando Arcia hit back-to-back homers during a four-inning first Wednesday night. The Braves hadn’t scored at least four runs in back-to-back games since April 24 and 26.

“Obviously we took one (Tuesday), which was nice,” said Braves left-hander Chris Sale, who tossed six scoreless innings Wednesday. “But (the first inning) kind of put the exclamation of like ‘Hey, we’re kind of back’ offensively.”

Quintana took the loss in his most recent start May 3, when he gave up eight runs over 2 2/3 innings as the Mets fell 10-8 to the Tampa Bay Rays. He is 3-5 with a 6.55 ERA in nine career starts against the Braves.

Morton didn’t factor into the decision May 3 after allowing two runs over six innings as the Braves lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers, 4-3 in 11 innings. He is 6-6 with a 3.71 ERA in 23 games (22 starts) against the Mets.

–Field Level Media