After a solid start from lineup leader Kyle Wright and a terrific 4-inning, scoreless outing from the bullpen, the Braves beat Max Scherzer and the Mets to grab a 1-game lead in the second game of the series of the year the NL East for the first time this season.
The game definitely didn’t start the way Wright or the Braves wanted it to. He threw 17 pitches before recording his first out and threw a total of 30 pitches in the first inning after loading bases and giving up the first run of the game. But give the 26-year-old, who turns 27 tomorrow, all the credit in the world for settling in and giving the Braves 5 innings on just two earned runs. The game could have spiraled out of control very early on and Wright made sure that didn’t happen, giving his offense time to work.
And the work that the offense has done. It was obvious from the first inning that the Braves saw Scherzer well on the plate. Although it was a 1-2-3 inning, the first involved three well-hit balls that happened to find gloves and very little swing-and-miss from Scherzer. The Braves clearly took comfortable bats.
The score stayed 1-0 Mets through the fourth inning when Austin Riley led the inning with a double and tabled the red-hot Matt Olson. Olson defeated the shift with a groundball single right where the shortstop would stand to bring in Riley and tie the game 1-1.
After Wright gave up his second run of the night in the top of the fifth, the offense came back in the bottom half and picked up where it left off in the fourth. After Ronald Acuna Jr. took the lead with a bloop single, Dansby Swanson demolished a ball into left centerfield for a 2-run homer, his second in two nights, giving the Braves their first lead of the night at 3-2.
The top of the order wasn’t done with their contributions for the evening when Matt Olson came back to the plate at the end of the sixth. With Scherzer on the ropes and clearly tiring, Matt Olson hit the second pitch of the inning, a 0-1 hanging change, down right field for his second homer in as many nights, giving Atlanta a 4-2 lead. one they would never give up.
The reason the lead would never be relinquished is because the Braves’ bullpen came in and closed the door to the game completely. Dylan Lee, Jesse Chavez, Rasiel Iglesias and Kenley Jansen each threw a scoreless inning and the four pitchers gave up 1 baserunner combined, Brandon Nimmo caught an Orlando Arcia miss in the seventh and that was it. After the Olson homer, the Mets went into the night quickly and quietly.
With the win, the Braves finally have a full game lead in the NL East for the first time all season and now need another win against the Mets tomorrow to win the crucial head-to-head series that serves as Tiebreaker for the division. A win tomorrow also means the Braves would have a full 2 game lead over the Mets AND would hold the tiebreaker, giving the Braves an overwhelming odds of winning the division with 3 games remaining. Game 3 is tomorrow night’s Sunday Night Baseball game with Charlie Morton and Chris Bassitt, first pitch at 7:08 ET.