The Atlanta Braves earned a four-game split against the New York Mets on Wednesday with a sixth-inning that had a little bit of everything.
After going 0-11 with runners in scoring position in the second game on Tuesday, the Atlanta Braves offense was due for an explosion, and it all came in one big inning on Wednesday.
It looked like we were going to see another low-scoring game between the Braves and Mets on Wednesday afternoon as the two teams remained tied at zero after five innings.
Then came the sixth inning, which started with a harmless flyout to left field by Matt Olson.
Austin Riley got it started with a groundball hit 71.9 MPH. He was initially ruled out at first base, but the first weird thing of the inning was that a replay — against a New York team nonetheless — went in favor of the Braves.
Marcell Ozuna and Ozzie Albies followed with singles that loaded the bases.
Then came the biggest decision of the game as Mets manager Buck Showalter took out Tylor Megill and replaced him with Adam Ottavino who had pitched the previous two days.
The next highly unusual thing in this inning was Travis d’Arnaud taking a walk. It was the first walk he had taken all year! And it was a big one as it plated the run.
Ottavino, clearly tired working for a third straight day, hung a slider over the middle of the plate and Adam Duvall laced into the left field corner for a 2-RBI double.
Dansby Swanson was nexted and he choked up with two strikes and punched a ball into center field for an RBI single making it 5-0.
That was highly unusual because Swanson strikes out a lot, the Braves hadn’t been great with RISP, and rarely does a Braves player actually choke up and just try to put the ball in play.
Guillermo Heredia walked, Ronald Acuna Jr. singled, and Matt Olson had an RBI groundout before Riley struck out — that ended the 7-run frame.
It’s crazy that Riley started the rally and then ended.
What’s really wild is that only one of the balls put in play during that inning was a hard-hit ball — that was Acuna’s single with an exit velocity of 104.2 MPH.
As hard as the Braves have hit the ball this year and not been rewarded, their biggest inning of the season came on a bunch of soft hits.
There was also a rundown in there that Acuna beat while Heredia was able to score.
The Braves will take them how they can get them right now, but that was certainly a crazy inning, and it helped lift the Braves to a 9-2 win over the New York Mets to get a four-game series split.