New York Mets defeat Atlanta Braves 1-0 – MLB Regular season
New York Mets defeated Atlanta Braves 1-0 at the Citi Field in New York City, New York on Thursday, April 5 in their regular season encounter of the 2012 Major League Baseball.
For the Mets, Johan Santana produced a match winning performance with his deadly sliders and fastballs. Santana, who missed the entire past season due to a shoulder injury, stepped on to the mound for the first time in 19 months but did not show any signs
of rustiness.
The starter struck out five in five scoreless innings. In a game where the runs were hard to come by, David Wright hit an RBI single to help his team rally past their opponents. Closer Frank Francisco also put up solid numbers to hold the Braves.
"Looks like the same dude to me," said Braves’ Dan Uggla of Santana. "The only difference I can see is like, he's not throwing quite as hard. But it didn't seem to matter."
"I'm happy with the way everything ended up," said Santana. "I want to make sure I'll be able to locate all my pitches and mix them all, and I think today was a good day."
The win will be of great importance for the Mets who struggled to make the most of available opportunities during the Spring Training Session. With their win over the Braves, the Mets would also have gained great amount of confidence, which can prove to
be vital in later stages of the season.
While the Mets are not one of the strongest teams in the American League, they certainly have the capacity to surprise even the best in the business.
"It's one game but it's very, very important for us," Mets manager Terry Collins said. "We pitch, we can compete. We've been talking all winter that we've improved our bullpen."
The Braves, on the other hand, will be disappointed with the performance of their batters. The game could have been won by any of the two teams but the Braves fell to the pressure to lose their opening game. It will be interesting to see if they can fight
back in their next scheduled game.
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