Game Ender! Walk-off dazzler denies Mets

NEW YORK — Off the bat, the Mets were convinced it was a home run — convinced that finally, for one night, they had managed to vanquish a Braves team bent on disrupting their Wild Card chase.

Ender Inciarte had other ideas. Racing over from his perch in center field, Inciarte leaped, thrust his glove over the fence and brought Yoenis Cespedes’ drive back into play. Rather than a walk-off homer, it became a game-ending out, allowing the Braves to cap a three-game sweep of the Mets with a 4-3 victory on Wednesday night at Citi Field.

“This is probably the best catch I’ve ever made,” Inciarte said. “I thought the ball was gone off the bat, but it was the last play of the game, so I just went for it. I was really pumped up. I caught the ball, and I knew I had it. But the fans were waiting until I took it out of the glove.”

Inciarte broke a lot of Mets fans’ hearts with his amazing grab

When Inciarte did, it was confirmed: Atlanta had won its sixth straight game in Flushing and its fifth in a row overall. And as uplifting as that was for the Braves, it was equally painful for the Mets, who relinquished an opportunity to move ahead of the Cardinals and Giants in the National League Wild Card race. The Mets remained tied with St. Louis and waited for the outcome of a late contest featuring the Giants, who inched a half-game ahead of the Mets with Inciarte’s catch.

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According to Statcast™, Cespedes’ drive had an exit velocity of 101.7 mph and a launch angle of 28 degrees. Batted balls with those traits go for a hit 84 percent of the time and a home run 72 percent of the time.

Inciarte had a first step of -0.73 seconds on the play, which means he was actually moving before the crack of the bat. He reached a top speed of 19.2 mph and covered 104 feet.

Jumping out to a 3-0 lead on Asdrubal Cabrera’s two-run homer in the first inning and Rene Rivera’s solo shot in the fifth, the Mets seemed as if they might cruise to victory from there. But an Anthony Recker two-run shot in the seventh inning brought the Braves back within a run of the lead, before a Dansby Swanson single chased starter Bartolo Colon from the game.

Mets manager Terry Collins made a series of unorthodox bullpen decisions at that point, bringing setup man Addison Reed into the game in the seventh, lefty specialist Josh Smoker in the eighth and, with the game on the line, closer Jeurys Familia in the ninth. The moves backfired when Matt Kemp tied things with a sacrifice fly off Familia. An inning later, with Familia still in the game, Inciarte hit a …

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