NEW YORK — Just when it looked as if Dan Uggla and his 25-game hitting streak would succumb to R.A. Dickey and the Mets, the Braves’ second baseman showed more flair for the dramatic.
He rifled a 1-1 pitch from reliever Ryota Igarashi for a two-run single to left field in his final at-bat Friday night to extend the fourth best hitting streak in Atlanta Braves history to 26 games.
The Braves made it two in a row on this trip with a 4-1 win over the Mets.
“It was actually kind of calming with runners in scoring position right there,” Uggla said. “I was able to take my focus off of the lesser of the important, which is continuing the hit streak, and just trying to concentrate on driving those runners in, getting them in somehow some way.”
Uggla went 0-for-3 against the knuckleballer Dickey to fall to 0-for-18 against him for his career. Uggla struck out in an identical situation against Dickey, with runners on second and third and one out in the sixth. But with a pitch coming from Igarashi with a little more pace and predictability — a split-finger fastball — Uggla came through.
“I was,” said Uggla, when asked if he was happy not to see a knuckleball. “I really had it set in my head that I was going to get [Dickey] today. I thought today was going to be the day. I was ready. And once again, he put it to me. It’s getting ridiculous.
The Braves had a little return to normalcy behind some standout pitching by Tim Hudson. For a rotation that had allowed 16 earned runs in 14 innings from their first three starters of the trip, Hudson was a welcome respite.
He gave up one run on three hits in seven innings. He won for the seventh time in 11 starts since the last time he pitched in Citi Field two months ago, while putting up a 2.24 ERA.
“Huddy for me was the key to the whole thing today,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. “He was nails.”
Hudson kept Mets speedy leadoff hitter Jose Reyes off the bases for only the second time in 10 games against the Braves this season.
The Braves got big contributions from a speedster of their own. While the Braves wait one more day for Chipper Jones to return to the lineup, they continued to look to Jose Constanza for a lift.
Constanza burned up the basepaths for an RBI triple, scored a run and caught a pair of hard-hit balls to left field by Reyes. He went 2-for-4 to raise his average to .407 (11-for-27), having hit safely in six of his first seven major league games.
He also set up the big moment for Uggla by keeping the Mets in a rundown between third and home on a fielder’s choice long enough for both Martin Prado and Freddie Freeman to get into scoring position for Uggla.
“Old George-y’s came in, and he’s doing well,” said Hudson of the teammate the Braves are affectionately nicknaming for the “Seinfeld” character. “... Hopefully he’s going to stick around for a while. He is definitely a Reyes-type weapon, which is hard to find.”
Gonzalez has started him in each of the first seven games and might be inclined to do the same Saturday night against the left-hander Jon Niese.
“He has put himself in a position where you’ve got to think about playing him,” Gonzalez said.
Freeman extended his own hitting streak to 19 games with a double off Dickey in the fourth inning and finished the game 2-for-4 with two doubles. He’s hot on Uggla’s tail, who is now two games shy of matching Marquis Grissom for the third longest hitting streak in Atlanta Braves history. Uggla has seen his average climb from .173 on July 5 to .215 on August 5.
Hudson has been the Braves’ best starter over this 11-10 stretch since the All-Star break. He has allowed three or fewer runs and gone seven innings in each of his first five starts since the All-Star game.
He needed an inning or two to get some sink on his sinker and allowed a run on an RBI double off the base of the left-field wall by David Wright. It was Hudson’s 16th first-inning run allowed this season — the most he has allowed in any inning. But he began to settle down in the second inning. He allowed only a bloop hit over the next six innings.
“I was able to settle down and finally able to get my sinker going and work down in the zone and staying behind the ball,” said Hudson, now 11-7 with a 3.22 ERA.
He got a fortuitous bounce on that bloop, when Jason Bay dropped a ball in front of a charging Jason Heyward in shallow right field. It bounced into the stands down the right-field line. Angel Pagan had to hold up at third base, and Hudson stranded him there after he got Josh Thole to fly out with the bases loaded.
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