Mets lose to Atlanta to finish wildly lopsided season series

ATLANTA — The difference between the Mets and Atlanta in their 7-0 loss Wednesday night was like the distance between opposite banks of a mellow river: vast and wet, but traversable if you can find a couple of well-placed rocks and tolerate being uncomfortable. 

The difference between the clubs this season, though? That is more like the Grand Canyon, an absolute chasm, a gaping hole created by a steady stream of many years of seemingly small, but definitely meaningful decisions.

The narrow-turned-blowout loss for the Mets marked an opportunity to take stock of just how far away they are from where they want to be: atop the division and the league, exactly where Atlanta is.

With the season series complete, the numbers were damning. The Mets went 3-10. The aggregate score: Atlanta 96, Mets 54.

A year after they finished with the same 101 wins in a historically competitive NL East race, decided in a head-to-head tiebreaker in which the difference was just one game, the Mets are 24 games back of first place (and a half-game ahead of last place).

The Mets kept this one close until Atlanta struck for a combined six runs off starter Jose Quintana and reliever Phil Bickford in the sixth and seventh innings. Vaughn Grissom had a two-run triple, aided by rightfielder DJ Stewart falling over and skidding on his face on a failed dive attempt, and Marcell Ozuna hit a two-run home run.

Ozuna went 8-for-11 with seven RBIs, four home runs and two doubles in the three-game series.

Quintana finished with an ugly line: 5 1/3 innings, five runs. He had baserunners galore — nine hits, three walks — but limited Atlanta to one run until his final frame. 

That snapped his streak of 20 consecutive starts in which he did not allow more than three earned runs. It was the longest active such streak in the majors.

Atlanta righthander Charlie Morton, meanwhile, shut the Mets down for seven scoreless innings with 11 strikeouts and one walk. They managed two hits off of him, both doubles by Stewart.

Stewart’s eventful game included getting picked off to end the top of the fifth, moments after he recorded the Mets’ first hit of the game. He took a lead off second base but fell over and, as he tried to retreat, was thrown out by catcher Sean Murphy.