Sports Page Atlanta

The pitcher’s duel we were promised between John Smoltz and Johan Santana lived up to its billing on Sunday, as Smoltz led the Braves to a 3-1 win over the Mets, finishing off the short, two-game sweep. Smoltz went five innings, giving up zero runs and striking out six, en route to his first victory of the year. Smoltz’ ailing shoulder did stiffen up a bit after the fifth, and the veteran pulled himself out of the game strictly as a precautionary measure. He is not expected to miss his next start.

Leading 1-0 in the bottom of the eighth, Mark Teixeira took Mets’ RP Aaron Heilman deep for a two-run shot, giving the Braves a little insurance.which they would need. In the top of the 9th, Rafael Soriano had already given up one run, and had two on and two outs with the go-ahead run at the plate. Brian Schneider ripped a ball down the first base line. Teixeira, who was a gold glove 1B in the AL with the Rangers, laid out to prevent the game-tying double, and flipped it to Soriano covering, to seal the win.

With the win, the Braves move into a first place tie in the NL East after the first week of play (as I predicted), and will embark on a 10-day road trip that takes them to Colorado, Washington, D.C., and Florida.
photo credit: bangart

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 6th, 2008 at 9:14 pm and is filed under Atlanta Braves. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.