Atlanta Braves fall to New York Mets in Easter marathon

New York Mets left fielder Eric Young Jr. (22) is safe at 2nd base as Atlanta Braves second baseman Dan Uggla (26) handles the late throw in the 1st inning as the New York Mets take on the Atlanta Braves at Citi Field. Mandatory Credit: William Perlman/The Star-Ledger

Through 9 innings of play at Citi Field on Easter Sunday, the Atlanta Braves and New York Mets played a relatively “normal” baseball game. However, normal flew out the window as neither team scored for more than 7 innings as the game went to the 14th inning in a 3-3 tie. Unfortunately, things didn’t end well for Braves fans, though, as Curtis Granderson lifted a pitch from Gus Schlosser to left field to produce the game-winning sacrifice fly in a 4-3 final decision.

Prior to the late-inning madness, David Hale put together 6 quality innings (3 runs, 2 earned), and that is a wildly encouraging sign. The young right-hander walked only 2 batters in his 6 frames, which is a great improvement from his yearly rate, and as the fifth starter at the moment, Hale put the Braves in position to potentially grab a victory when he exited in a 3-3 tie.

Behind him, the bullpen was absolutely superb, despite the final result. Ian Thomas, David Carpenter, Luis Avilan and Anthony Varvaro each threw scoreless innings of work to bridge the gap through 10 innings, and long man Gus Schlosser was tremendous aside from the final damage. Ironically, Schlosser did not allow a hit in his 3.2 innings of work, but was charged for the final run after a sequence of a lead-off walk (which is always trouble), a sacrifice bunt, a wild pitch and the final sacrifice fly. Still, it was nice to see the sidearmer pitch effectively in lowering his season ERA to 5.59, and his nearly 4 innings of work were huge in saving the rest of the bullpen from action.

Offensively, this was certainly nothing to write home about, especially in the later innings. The 5th inning produced all 3 runs for Atlanta, as Jason Heyward doubled in David Hale to get things going before BJ Upton and Freddie Freeman followed him with RBI doubles of their own. Aside from that, though, it was relatively ugly, and the Mets threw seven consecutive shutout innings to close the game, including 3 from the much-maligned Daisuke Matsuzaka. Only Heyward, who finished 3-for-6, had more than one hit in the game, and this was a typical Sunday afternoon offensive performance with the caveat that Fredi Gonzalez actually deployed his “regular” lineup.

The Braves are back in action on Monday evening, as they host the Miami Marlins in an NL East battle at Turner Field, and it will be Julio Teheran on the mound, as he looks to follow up his complete game shut-out from earlier in the week. Stay tuned.