Approximately 24 hours before this game began, the Braves were down to their last stroke and were in danger of starting the 2020 season 0-2 by losing two consecutive games against the Mets. Instead, Marcell Ozuna led Edwin Diaz to the right center, and the Braves won their first game of the season in additional innings. As a follow-up to those heroes, Ozuna and the Braves absolutely erased the Mets with a score of 14-1 for their first victory in the 2020 series.
Going hit for hit on this one seems almost unnecessary as the game quickly turned into a laugh. Even before the Mets hit at bat, they were down 2-0, as Rick Porcello doubled Ozzie Albies, walked with Freddie Freeman, and then gave up consecutive punches with Matt Adams and Dansby Swanson. . Adams was sent off trying to take third place in the latter, but in the end it didn’t matter at all.
Porcello abandoned consecutive singles one out in the second, but Ronald Acuña Jr.’s miserable start to 2020 continued when he came to a double play ending in the inning (after striking out to start the game). That was also the calm before the storm of the Braves’ bats that finally chased Porcello: seven Braves in a row reached to start the third, and it was 7-1 when all was said and done. Albies started the frame by reaching an error, while Ozuna, Swanson and Ender Inciarte doubled each of the driven races. Porcello left after the first five batters in the inning, but Corey Oswalt fared no better. In addition to giving up Inciarte’s double RBI in the third, Oswalt gave up a two-run homer to Swanson in the fourth, a double RBI to Albies in the fifth (scoring Acuña, who got his first extra-base hit of the year with a double right. beforehand), and then home runs to Ozuna and Austin Riley, the latter a prodigious, insane shot to the moon estimated at 458 feet, in the sixth.
When Oswalt left, they were 12-1 Braves, but they attacked a couple more than Paul Sewald, when Albies hit his first long ball of the year on the wall in the center, another explosion without a doubt. The Braves failed to score in just three innings in this game: Porcello’s second, Sewald’s eighth, and Hunter Strickland’s ninth.
As for the Atlanta pitch, it wasn’t always pretty, but it kept the Mets off the board. Sean Newcomb started and had another exit similar to the guy who pulled him out of the rotation earlier last year. Newcomb hit consecutive hitters in the first with one out, but got out of it hitting Yoenis Céspedes and getting a prop from Michael Conforto. He retired the first two men in the second, but then took a horrible five-pitch walk to catcher Tomas Nido, threw a wild pitch, and let Brandon Nimmo turn left, cutting the lead to just one run. . Despite a huge mattress when the third rolled, Newcomb was about to be thrown when he abandoned another wandering two-out walk and was followed by a single one, but another discharge rescued him. He was thrown after Nido’s double out in the fourth, having made ten outs on 82 pitches, with two walks and two batting hitters against a strikeout (but eight outs).
After Newcomb left, Jhoulys Chacin arrived for her 2020 debut in her second stint as Brave. Chacin was somewhat opposed to Newcomb, as he had 11 outs in just 54 pitches, although something like Newcomb, there were plenty of balls at stake: Chacin struck out a single hitter and walked only one hitter (the former faced in-game). Newcomb had nine three-ball counts in his 3 one⁄3 work tickets; Chacin had four.
Tyler Matzek came in for the eighth, making his first major league mound appearance since 2015, and his second career relief appearance. It all ended very quickly as he left only one comeback as his night started and ended with a strikeout. Grant Dayton ended the game with a two-strikeout of his own, yielding just one to brave René Rivera.
The offensive portion of the Braves ledger was striking. The 13-run margin of victory was the largest since the 15-1 win over the Phillies last June, and the largest against the Mets since the 15-2 win in Citi Field’s 2009 inaugural season. Dansby Swanson drove in five, tying a high run. Ozzie Albies had two doubles to go with his home run. Every Braves starter had at least one hit; Rookie William Contreras, making his first start in the major leagues, had three. The Braves had five walks and only six strikeouts. Perhaps the only brave man who is still not having too much fun: Ronald Acuña Jr., who went 1 for 6 with a pair of strikeouts and a GIDP, along with another very weak pitch.
The Braves will now head to St. Petersburg, where they will attempt to defeat the Rays, who also improved to 2-1 on Sunday when facing the Blue Jays.
