Inciarte's walk-off bunt caps Braves' late rally
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ATLANTA -- A night after they were shut down by Mets closer Jeurys Familia, the Braves got their revenge on him Saturday night at SunTrust Park, walking off with a 4-3 win on Ender Inciarte's perfectly placed bunt single. It marked Atlanta's second walk-off win of the season.
"It's a really big win for our club," Braves manager Brian Snitker said. "I mean, to beat this team like that, it's got to give them confidence."
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Down 3-2 in the ninth, Dansby Swanson drew a leadoff walk and scored on Johan Camargo's game-tying RBI triple -- his first hit of the season -- on a sharp grounder that went to the right-center wall.
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With runners at the corners and one out, Camargo slid headfirst into home to end the game when Inciarte dropped a bunt down the first-base side. Inciarte's bat has come alive after his miserable road trip, hitting .370 (10-for-27) on the homestand.
"[Familia] is a sinker guy," Inciarte said. "And I remember last year on a sacrifice bunt against him, he broke my bat on the sacrifice bunt. So I've seen a lot of pitches from him, I know what the sinker does when he's throwing it and I mean, I was looking for something I could just hit off the end of the bat to first base."
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Braves starter Julio Teheran was locked in a pitchers' duel with Mets ace Jacob deGrom, notching seven scoreless innings -- his longest outing of the season -- with six strikeouts and one walk. Teheran, who struggled at home last year (5.86 ERA), has a 1.42 ERA in his last three starts.
"I'm just happy with the way I threw the ball today," Teheran said. "I feel like I did my job. I knew we were facing one of the toughest lineups in the game right now and just wanted to do my work."
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The Braves didn't collect their first hit off deGrom, who went seven scoreless innings with 10 strikeouts, until Carlos Pérez's two-out single in the fifth. They got their first runner in scoring position when Inciarte stole second after reaching on a leadoff infield single in the sixth. Inciarte then took off for third base with Ozzie Albies batting and was originally ruled safe, but the Mets challenged the call and it was overturned.
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SOUND SMART
Freddie Freeman doubled twice on Saturday, making it the 23rd multi-double game of his career. His 41 career doubles against the Mets put him five shy of Chipper Jones' club record against New York.
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YOU GOTTA SEE THIS
Making his Major League debut, left-hander Jesse Biddle pitched a scoreless ninth inning to get credited with the win. The former 2010 first-round Draft pick of the Phillies needed 15 pitches to retire the side on three groundouts and one walk.
"Right now, I am just happy that we won," Biddle said. "At the end of the day, I'm just a pitcher trying to help my team out, and they played unbelievable, so it was just a fun game to be a part of."
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HE SAID IT
"That was very surprising, but what a great baseball move right there. I didn't even grab my stuff because I told Snit, 'I believe in Ender. I'm not even gonna go up there.' And the next thing you know, he's bunting, and I just start panicking and then all of the sudden just awesomeness happened. I don't think anybody else would have thought of that except for Ender." -- Freeman
MITEL REPLAY OF THE DAY
The top of the eighth was a nightmare for young second baseman Albies, who didn't cover first base in time on José Reyes' bunt. Then, with runners on first and second and no outs, Michael Conforto grounded to third base on what looked to be a tailor-made 5-4-3 double play. But Albies could not hold on to the throw from Camargo. Though Reyes was originally called out, a replay review overturned the call. The runs later came in to score on Asdrúbal Cabrera's two-run single to right. The sloppy inning continued when Inciarte, a two-time Gold Glove Award-winning center fielder, booted a Jay Bruce RBI single.
"It was a bad inning," Snitker said. "Not like us. We've been so fundamentally sound, it was just kind of one of those innings that you're going to have. We're gonna play for six months, and there's gonna be innings like that."
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Albies redeemed himself in the bottom of the inning, drawing a one-out walk to set the stage for Freeman's two-run double to left to trim the deficit to 3-2.
UP NEXT
Right-hander Mike Foltynewicz will make his fifth start of the season Sunday after picking up a no-decision in his eight-strikeout outing against the Phillies on Tuesday. The Mets will counter with righty Zack Wheeler. First pitch is scheduled for 1:35 p.m. ET.