How the Mets and Braves fought back to secure postseason spots

ATLANTA – The clubhouses at Truist Park hosted two simultaneous champagne celebrations Monday, one for the New York Mets and one for the Atlanta Braves. The managers were soaked before they retreated to their respective offices, grinning and alone, still processing everything that had happened on the last day of the regular baseball season.

On one side of the building, Brian Snitker of the Braves said he was glad his team would continue the season even as he prepared for a cross-country flight, then paused. “What a roller coaster ride,” he said.

On the other hand, Mets manager Carlos Mendoza struck a similar tone, shaking his head: “That [day] was like our season. Lots of ups and downs. … What a roller coaster ride.”

This trip now continues for both teams: The Mets travel to the Wildcard round against the Milwaukee Brewers and the Braves travel to San Diego. Even in an increasingly dramatic elimination series, it seems impossible that they can stumble and squirm through the range of emotions they experienced on Monday.

For Snitker, the tumult began a little more than an hour before the first pitch, when Chris Sale – the likely winner of the National League Cy Young Award this year – came into his office to tell the manager that his ailing back was being treated would prevent him from pitching the second game of Monday's doubleheader, as the Braves had planned if they lost the opener.

Sale appeared to be injured in his last start in Cincinnati and his speed noticeably decreased. As he received treatment over the last few days, there were moments when he thought he was making progress. But he knows how back problems can happen: you just never know. On Sunday evening, Sales’ back hurt – badly. Snitker still hoped Sale would feel better in the morning, but the pitcher — the most unselfish star player Snitker has ever seen, he said — was a no-go. Snitker didn't panic: He still hoped the Braves would win the first game of the doubleheader, eliminating the need to use Sale and perhaps even giving him another day to improve.

And in fact, for a while, it seemed like Sales' injury wouldn't matter. Spencer Hügelbach dominated the Mets for seven innings, filling the strike zone with curveballs, sliders and fastballs and getting further and further ahead in the count. The Braves led 3-0 early in the eighth inning of Game 1 with Wechselbach in control.

Then Tyrone pushed Taylor Wechselbach through an 11-pitch at-bat to lead off the inning with a double, and Snitker pulled his starter and called up reliever Joe Jimenez. Starling Marte Single; so did Francisco Lindor. The Braves' lead was suddenly reduced to one run. Snitker called in his closer, Raisel Iglesias, hoping he could get the next six outs.

Before the game, the Mets' Iglesias – Jose Iglesias – had, like all hitters, begun his round of batting practice by dropping a few bunts. Iglesias was more determined than most in his attempts, trying to bury them along the third base line. He's good at bunting — he's had 24 sacrifice bunts in his career, though none since 2019. And here in the eighth inning, he knew the situation — runners on first and second, nobody out, the Mets trailing by a run — seemed like it would to scream for a victim.

Jose Iglesias walked up to baserunners Lindor and Marte as they met with their manager in front of the Mets dugout, an impromptu conference. Iglesias asked the manager with a silent nod: Do you want me to be colorful?

“Do you see him well?” Mendoza asked Iglesias, referring to Raisel.

Iglesias answered “yes” – and he had the green light to move.

“This is your attack,” Mendoza said, “and you will succeed.”

“I was so excited that he trusted me,” Iglesias later said.

Raisel Iglesias jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead, but when Raisel tried to finish Jose off with a pitch, the Met hit it to right field for a two-run single to tie the game. Jose Iglesias clenched his fists and beat his chest on his way to first place. Previously, the Mets had lost 47 straight games when trailing by three or more runs in the eighth inning or later, a streak dating back to May 2023.

“I saw a man who wanted more than anyone else on the field,” Lindor later said of Iglesias. “I saw that. A guy who didn't want to give in. A guy who told me in the last play of every game that we were going to fight the way we do.”

When Brandon Nimmo followed with a home run, the Mets led 6-3. Mendoza saw a chance to secure a playoff spot, and as the Braves began to rally in the bottom of the eighth inning, he turned to closer Edwin Diaz. With five outs to go, it was a reasonable question: Diaz had beaten the Phillies eight days earlier in two innings with 100-mile-per-hour fastballs.

On Monday, however, Diaz's first fastball reached 96 mph; his second reading was 94 miles per hour. This was not the same Diaz, neither in speed nor in command. He failed to cover first base after a chopper hit to right, and all Pete Alonso could do was watch as Jarred Kelenic beat him to the bag for what the official scorer said was a single. It wasn't long before Ozzie Albies moved closer to the plate in the batter's box and ambushed one of those harmless fastballs for a bases-clearing double. The Braves were ahead again; The score was 7-6 and the teams had scored 10 runs in the inning.

With Raisel Iglesias out of the game after just seven pitches, Snitker called on Pierce Johnson to get the final three outs. Marte singled out and Lindor hit a slider high into right field.

To the dismay of Mets fans, he initially grimaced – a player who may have been dealing with lingering back problems or feeling like he had just missed a pitch.

“I knew 100% I got it,” Lindor said.

The Mets dugout erupted again; Somehow the Mets were ahead again. There were three lead changes in three half innings.

Mendoza had intended to take Diaz out of the game, but Diaz talked his way back in at the end of the ninth – OK, sort of required for the ninth pitch, and his manager yielded to the All-Star closer. As Diaz took the final out, he turned and speared his glove on the mound before hugging catcher Francisco Alvarez. Lindor wiped away tears and gave Mets owner Steve Cohen a warm hug before Lindor, Diaz and Tylor Megill spoke to the players on the catwalk behind the dugout – formal recognition that they had made the playoffs. (Major League Baseball had asked teams prior to the day's action not to engage in any celebrations involving alcohol between games of the doubleheader.)

The Braves, on the other hand, were suddenly faced with the reality that a loss in Game 2 would eliminate them and allow the Arizona Diamondbacks to sneak in as the No. 6 seed — and that came within 15 minutes of the end of Game 1 in the Braves' clubhouse the news that Sale would not be able to host Game 2. Mendoza was walking through the clubhouse when a guard told him about it.

Not even all of Sale's Braves teammates were aware of it, but some were. Grant Holmes was told about 10 minutes after Game 1 that he would start the next game. Snitker, sitting in the dugout before Game 2, said he would not have used Holmes in relief on Sunday afternoon if he had known he would need him on Monday.

But Holmes pitched well and the Mets hitters hacked aggressively in Game 2, which for a time felt like a spring training game, with Braves fans watching quietly as Atlanta tried to hold onto a 1-0 lead. The Braves looked tired, frustrated or exhausted at the end of a season filled with injuries from Spencer Strider to Ronald Acuna Jr. to Austin Riley.

As Atlanta scored in the bottom of the sixth inning, Eddie Perez – a longtime member of the Braves organization – stood directly in front of Marcell Ozuna, Atlanta's struggling DH, and began talking sharply to him. At one point, Perez leaned right in front of him and challenged him. Ozuna was the Braves' MVP this year, but a late-season slump hurt his numbers and he appeared sullen to his teammates on Monday, a far cry from most of the year. Perez told him to stop thinking about himself and focus more on the team. “If you hit, we win,” Perez said to Ozuna, who stared ahead.

In his next plate appearance, Ozuna hit a single to center field, extending Atlanta's lead to 3-0. Finally. The Braves could breathe. “That’s why I’m keeping Eddie Perez here – to chew some ass,” Snitker said. “And to order the wine.”

Snitker called for a mulligan from Raisel Iglesias, and his stuff was better in that second game – or maybe the Mets and Braves were all just tired and wanted to get the doubleheader over with, ready to drink some champagne and smoke cigars at the end one strange and wild baseball day. In the Braves clubhouse, Orlando Arcia sprayed Albies and Ozuna with bottles. As the Mets celebrated, they marched from the field to the clubhouse and back.

In Snitker's office, he was asked who he wanted to start in Game 1 of the wild-card series in San Diego on Tuesday. He replied with a sigh. “I have no idea.”