The Associated Press
ATLANTA—Daniel Murphy found the best way to make up for a poor day in the field.
“I was very fortunate the team even gave me an opportunity in that last at-bat because I wasn’t playing very well,” he said.
Murphy hit a tying three-run homer in the ninth inning, and Kirk Nieuwenhuis scored the tie-breaking run on a throwing error in the 10th, as the N.Y. Mets won their seventh-straight game with a 10-7 victory over the Atlanta Braves yesterday.
New York, which earned its first four-game sweep of the Braves since July 20-23, 1989 at Shea Stadium, stayed 9.5 games ahead of Washington in the NL East with 19 games left in the regular season.
“It’s really hard to imagine that we would be sitting where we are right now,” admitted Mets’ manager Terry Collins.
“Even though we thought we had a good team, this is far above what we expected.”
Atlanta, meanwhile, dropped to 14-46 since July 8 and now has lost 12-straight at Turner Field—the longest franchise home skid since the 1931 Boston Braves.
“We have a home losing streak? I had no idea,” retorted Braves’ first baseman Freddie Freeman.
“It’s tough, but hopefully we can come back on Tuesday [against Toronto] and break it,” he added.
All of the Mets’ final six runs came with two outs.
Facing Edwin Jackson (2-3) in the 10th, Nieuwenhuis scored when Hector Olivera threw errantly to pull second baseman Daniel Castro off the bag and let Ruben Tejada beat the tag attempt.
New York then added a pair of runs on bases-loaded walks.
Poor fielding nearly undid the Mets as first baseman Lucas Duda, third baseman Juan Uribe, second baseman Murphy, and right-fielder Curtis Granderson all had a tough afternoon.
Only Uribe was charged with an error but New York blew chances at some easy outs—the last coming when Granderson lost Garcia’s bloop single in the sun for a 7-4 lead in the eighth.
Elsewhere in the NL, Washington blanked Miami 5-0, St. Louis beat Cincinnati 9-2, Philadelphia downed Chicago 7-4, Pittsburgh topped Milwaukee 7-6 (11 innings), San Francisco dumped San Diego 10-3, and L.A. edged Arizona 4-3.
Colorado nipped Seattle 3-2 in interleague play.
