After watching teammate Mike Minor pitch a complete-game gem and lose Sunday at Chicago, it looked as if the Braves’ Julio Teheran might endure a similar fate Monday night against the Mets.
Teheran pitched six crisp innings, but the Braves’ defense failed him a couple of times, and the offense did, too.
Until the ninth inning.
Johnson & Johnson came through big time in the top of the ninth, and Jason Heyward followed with a spectacular game-ending catch in the bottom of the inning for a stirring, 2-1 Braves win to open a four-game series at Citi Field.
“That,” catcher Brian McCann said, “was great.”
After loading the bases with one out in the seventh and failing to score, and getting a leadoff single in the eighth without scoring, the Braves broke through in the ninth, getting an RBI groundout from Chris Johnson and a two-out, pinch-hit RBI single by Reed Johnson for a 2-1 lead.
That set the stage for Heyward.
Craig Kimbrel hit John Buck with a pitch with one out in the ninth, and walked Omar Quintanilla on 10 pitches with two out. Justin Turner then hit a shot into the left-center gap for what looked like it might be a game-ending, two-run hit.
But Heyward, playing center in his first game after an 11-day rehab from a hamstring strain, came from out of the picture, racing over from the right-center gap. He dove and fully extended his big body to catch the ball inches from the ground.
“I knew I had to dive, because I didn’t think it was in my reach,” he said. “As I got closer I thought, obviously you’re going to try to make the play here with two outs, the game on the line. If you don’t catch it, so be it. But fortunately, I was able to get a good enough jump.”
He rose to show he’d caught it, and teammates hugged Heyward as he came off the field. Many in an announced crowd of 25,111 looked stunned, some shaking their heads, other raising hands in astonishment.
“He made a hell of a play to save the game,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. “It was a hell of a play, regardless. But to end the game that way… Wow, what a catch.”
Asked if it was the best and most meaningful catch of his young career, Heyward said yes.
“In situations like that you want the ball to be hit to you, no matter where it is,” he said, “and you want to be in that spot right there to make a play to win the game.”
Teammates were awed by how much ground he covered — the Braves were playing Turner shaded to right — not to mention the fact the Gold Glove right fielder was playing out of position in just his fifth career game in center.
“That’s the highest I’ve jumped in six or seven years,” said Reed Johnson, who was playing left field at the time. “I was going to cry either way, whether he caught it or not. Happy tears is a good thing.”
Teheran was in the clubhouse at the time, talking about the game with McCann. “I jumped when I saw the catch,” said the soft-spoken Colombian pitcher. “I was yelling.”
Said McCann: “I mean, he’s playing right-center, and ran about 60 yards to make the catch. There’s not many guys that can make that play. When he gets going full-tilt, he can fly.”
McCann and Evan Gattis started the ninth with consecutive singles against Mets closer Bobby Parnell (McCann was replaced by a pinch-runner). After Dan Uggla grounded into a force at third, Gattis and Uggla advanced on a passed ball, and Chris Johnson grounded to short to bring in the tying run.
Reed Johnson, who was robbed of a potential tying two-run homer in the eighth inning of Sunday’s 3-1 loss to the White Sox, would not be denied again Monday. He singled to center to give the Braves a 2-1 lead.
“It feels great,” Johnson said. “Especially coming off the bench, to be able to help impact the game like that, it definitely means a lot. It’s tough in that situation, against a closer, and then it becomes even tougher when you’re in a pinch-hit situation. So it really feels pretty good.”
Right-hander Dillon Gee took a no-hitter to the seventh inning and the Mets scored their only run after right fielder Justin Upton misplayed a flyball into a leadoff triple by Marlon Byrd in the sixth.
The Braves loaded the bases with one out in the seventh and failed to score, the third time in a 15-inning span over two days that they failed to score after loading the bases, including twice with less than two outs.
Freddie Freeman led off the seventh with a lined single to center field to break up Gee’s no-hit bid, then stole second base — his first steal of the season — on a swinging third strike by McCann. Gattis followed with a single to put runners on the corners and Uggla was hit by a pitch with one out.
Chris Johnson then hit a routine grounder to third baseman David Wright, who threw home for the force and the second out. Then rookie Joey Terdoslavich struck out to end the inning, pinch-hitting for Teheran.
“We get paid to show up and play hard to the last out,” McCann said. “That’s what this team does. I felt like (Sunday) we hit the ball great, but it just didn’t fall our way. That’s the game of baseball. You can do everything right and still fail.”
Teheran was charged with one run and four hits in six innings, with two walks and six strikeouts. Of the four hits against the rookie, the first was a double that landed just inside the left-field foul line when converted catcher Gattis backed off at the last moment as he neared foul territory and the wall a few feet away.
The next hit was Daniel Murphy’s infield single in the third, and replays showed that Chris Johnson’s throw to first beat the runner.
The third hit off Teheran was Byrd’s triple, on a soft fly ball to right. Upton charged it and tried to make a sliding catch, but the ball landed behind his glove and rolled all the way to the wall before it was retrieved by Heyward.
Byrd, a Sprayberry High graduate, scored on the next pitch when Ike Davis singled to right for a 1-0 lead.
Heyward usually plays right field and Upton plays left for the Braves. But with center fielder B.J. Upton on the disabled list, Gonzalez shifted Heyward to center when he returned to the lineup Monday.
