The Silliness Continues; Mets Take Rain-Shortened Game

NEW YORK 1, ATLANTA 0

Sunday's Braves-Mets game was a little like getting Whammied on Press Your Luck. Atlanta repeatedly failed to get runners in from second and third base, had an unearned run scored off of them and the skies opened up in the sixth inning, allowing the Mets to sweep the Braves by a 1-0 score.

It was almost like clockwork: the Braves had the bases loaded with two out in the first inning, men on first and second with two out in the second inning, men on first and second with one out in the third inning and men on first and second with one out in the fifth inning. A pop-up to short by Jason Heyward, a strikeout by Martin Prado, a double play grounder to short by Heyward, and a double play grounder to third by Troy Glaus ended each of those threats.

The Mets got their run off Braves starter Tommy Hanson in the first inning when Jose Reyes singled with two out, stole second and scored on an errant throw by Chipper Jones to first base in an attempt to get Jason Bay. It appeared that Chipper could have chosen to go after Reyes to tag him out, but he decided to throw to first anyway. The ball took a funny hop and bounced away from Glaus, allowing the run to score.

Hanson and Mets starter Mike Pelfrey wriggled out of that kind of trouble all game. Whlie striking out eight batters, Hanson was able to strand the other six baserunners he allowed via three singles and two walks. Pelfrey was able to strand every Braves runner, who got on with two doubles, three singles and five walks.

Odds 'N Ends: At least Tommy Hanson didn't have a quality start for the Braves to blow. As I think I mentioned yesterday, the Braves are 3-5 in games where the starter has a quality start.

Troy Glaus has seemed to become the bane of many Braves fans' existences. He leads the team with 10 hitless games where the player has started the game. Glaus has started 15 of the Braves' first 18 games. Calls for Eric Hinske to start more frequently have already begun, and probably won't be realized until about mid-May or so if Glaus continues to hit like he did coming back from shoulder surgery last year.