NEW YORK – Yes, they still have the worst record in the National League, but the Braves sure aren’t acting like it.
They have a season-high five-game winning streak after Julio Teheran threw a brilliant one-hit shutout to complete a sweep of the reigning NL champion New York Mets with a 6-0 win on a sunny Sunday before a large and unhappy crowd of 41,574 at Citi Field.
Teheran retired the last 21 batters he faced in his fifth career complete game and third shutout, and the first shutout with so few hits by a Braves pitcher on the road since Kent Merker’s no-hitter at Dodger Stadium on April 8, 1994.
“I was pretty excited. Everything was working,” said Teheran, who had seven strikeouts with no walks and threw 82 strikeouts in 120 pitches, the third time he’s thrown 120 or more in 115 career starts. “I’m pretty happy with the way I pitched today and the way we played.
“At the beginning everything was working and I was in control on the mound, so I was just trying to keep that pace.”
The only Met to reach base was Michael Conforto on a leadoff single in the third inning.
“This was pretty special,” interim manager Brian Snitker said after his Braves completed their first sweep at Citi Field since Sept. 7-9, 2012. “He just kept getting easy early-count outs. Had a couple of innings where he had to work, but… To be honest, I kind of feel like that every time he goes out that something good could happen.”
The Braves have won seven of 11 games and improved to 14-18 under Snitker. They were 9-28 under Fredi Gonzalez before he was fired.
The Braves got two-out RBIs from three hitters including red-hot Freddie Freeman, who had four hits including two doubles, and Nick Markakis, who also hit his second home run of the season.
But this day belonged to Teheran (3-7), who threw the first complete game for a Braves pitcher this season, his first since 2014, and his first shutout since May 20, 2014 at Milwaukee. The hits total was the lowest in his five complete games, and he was the first Brave to throw a one-hit shutout since Jaire Jurrjens did it against the Orioles on July 2, 2011.
He ranks among NL leaders with a 2.66 ERA and could be a legitimate All-Star candidate despite his record.
“Even the last couple where he’s given up some homers and stuff, those were more just occasional mistakes,” Braves catcher Tyler Flowers said. “I really don’t know if we made any mistakes today, whenever we missed we missed in good spots.”
After winning games that featured pitching matchups of Braves rookies John Gant and Aaron Blair against Matt Harvey and Steven Matz, the Braves sent veteran Teheran to the mound in the series finale against Jacob deGrom, who was seventh in the 2015 NL Cy Young balloting. Teheran completely outpitched him.
Freeman had his second four-hit game in five days and fifth game with at least three hits in the past seven games, a torrid stretch in which he’s hit .548 (17-for-31) with five doubles, a triple, three home runs and eight RBIs to put himself in contention for NL Player of the Week honors.
“He’s swinging it a little bit,” Flowers said, smiling. “We played really well this series the whole time. Bats were pretty good and some big hits, two-out RBIs – that’s always big. Keeps momentum on your side and kind of demoralizes them. So it’s nice to be on the other end of that every once in a while.”
DeGrom (3-4) left after allowing five hits and three runs in six innings, including three consecutive two-out hits in the third inning, when Ender Inciarte and Markakis singles drove in the first two runs of the game.
Markakis led off the sixth with a homer to push the lead to 3-0, and the Braves scored two in the seventh against lefty Antonio Bastardo. He gave up a leadoff double to Erick Aybar, hit Mallex Smith with a pitch that broke the rookie’s left thumb, then balked in a run before Freeman’s two-out RBI double caromed off the glove of right fielder Curtis Granderson at the wall.
The Braves also scored a run on an eighth-inning wild pitch for the second consecutive game, with Jace Peterson doing the honors when he raced in from third with bases loaded on a Hansel Robles errant pitch.
It was only the third time the Braves scored more than three runs while Teheran was in a game in 21 starts since the beginning of September 2015, and he’s won all three. He’s 5-8 in that span despite posting a 2.36 ERA and holding opponents to two earned runs or fewer in 16 of 21 games, including one or no earned runs in 11 games.
Teheran had the worst run support among major league starters this season before Sunday at 2.63 runs per nine innings pitched. His 2.2 WAR before Sunday was tied for 11th among NL pitchers, and all 10 ahead of him had at least eight wins.
