Juan Soto's homer not enough as Mets lose series opener to Braves

Abbey Mastracco, New York Daily News on Jul 3, 2026

Published in Baseball

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ATLANTA — The Mets continue to say they believe they can reach the postseason this year, but at this point, the postseason is about as real for them as Santa Claus.

On a night when the ball was flying out of Truist Park, only one Mets hitter managed to get a ball to leave the park. Juan Soto hit his 18th of the season in the third inning against Atlanta Braves right-hander Grant Holmes in a 5-3 loss Friday night. It briefly tied the game, but former Braves reliever A.J. Minter gave up a solo shot to Matt Olson in the fifth.

The problem with the Mets (36-52) is that they never have enough of what they need. It makes little sense for a team with so many stars and with so much money committed to the payroll. They might hit a lot of home runs, but they don’t get a lot of traffic on the basepaths. They don’t have enough starting pitching to insulate themselves when a starter has a bad night.

They don’t have nearly enough wins to give them any sort of margin for error, especially not against the Braves (51-35), top team in the NL East.

One of those starters kept them in the game as a reliever, one of few positives for the Mets so far during a two-city, seven-game road trip through Toronto and Atlanta. Kodai Senga made his first true relief appearance, pitching 2 2/3 innings, starting in the bottom of the sixth. Keeping him in the rotation became untenable, but after going 5 innings behind an opener with respectable results his last time out, the Mets finally decided to move him to the bullpen.

It’s a move that seemed to be in the works for months, if not even for a year. Senga struggled so much after returning from an injury last season that the Mets asked him to go down to Triple-A. This season, he’s been confounding, with good stuff, yet a seeming lack of awareness of when and how to use it, and an inability to throw strikes consistently. A low-pressure move to mop up man could help him regain some of his confidence.

It worked for left-hander Sean Manaea, Saturday’s starter, but it didn’t work well for David Peterson. The since-traded lefty gave up 10 earned runs for the Chicago Cubs on Friday.

Pitching in a game with a two-run deficit could hardly be considered mop-up duty, however. Senga pitched in some high-leverage innings and kept the deficit at two for the first two innings, but Olson got to him in the eighth. This shows that the Mets still have some confidence in the pitcher who was a finalist for the NL Rookie of the Year Award only three years ago.

But the Mets couldn’t close the gap.

The Braves were aggressive against right-hander Christian Scott. He cruised through the first inning needing only 10 pitches, but got into trouble right away in the second. He walked Mauricio Dubon and gave up a home run to Michael Harris II, giving the Braves a 2-0 lead. It didn’t get any easier from there.

With one out, Austin Riley battled him for 10 pitches before walking. Scott retired the next two hitters to get out of the inning, but the Braves continued to foul off tough pitches and make Scott throw strikes, something he wasn’t able to do effectively. After giving up the go-ahead homer to Ozzie Albies in the third, he walked the next two hitters.

Scott (2-1) was charged with three earned runs on two hits, walked four and struck out seven in four innings.

The Mets took two runs (one earned) off Holmes (5-4), on five hits. He went five innings, walking one and striking out two before the bullpen took over. Raisel Iglesias gave up a run with two outs before converting the save (17), getting Francisco Lindor to ground out with runners on the corners.