This is the level that the Braves need to maintain if they’re going to get back into the Postseason conversation.
The Atlanta Braves are better than what their record indicates. It was the case when they were struggling in California and it’s the case now that they’re getting ready to face the Marlins after having swept the New York Mets over the course of three games. While you can fairly point out that the Mets have clearly hit a bit of a rough patch at the moment and maybe the Braves caught New York at the right time, the fact of the matter is that the Braves are fully capable of playing this level of baseball — they just have to figure out a way to consistently play at that high level.
It also helped that the pitching matchups were favorable for Atlanta in this one as the Braves had Spencer Strider, Spencer Schwellenbach and Chris Sale going for them against the team with the NL’s best record heading into this series. The Braves had clearly loaded up their rotation for this massive series and the rest of the team needed to deliver as well. As you will see below, the Braves did in fact deliver and now we get to talk about an incredibly encouraging (and satisfying) sweep of the Mets. Let’s get into it!
Tuesday, June 17
Braves 5, Mets 4
Hoo boy, this did not look good for the Braves in the early-and-middle portion of this one. Juan Soto marked his return to Truist Park as a divisional foe with a solo home run that put the Mets in front to start off and then Tyrone Taylor plated two with a double to make it a 3-0 Mets lead. Atlanta clawed back a run in the third inning but Taylor snatched the run right back with a solo shot of his own to make it 4-1 after five innings.
Things stayed that way until the eighth inning, which is when the Braves hit the “Magical Eighth Inning At Truist Park” Button once again. David Peterson had made it into the eighth inning before a walk and a single chased him from the game. New York went with Reed Garrett and that didn’t work because Alex Verdugo welcomed him to the game with an RBI single and then Marcell Ozuna brought the crowd in Cobb County to a fever pitch with a bases-clearing, game-tying RBI double to make it 4-4.
The game eventually made it to extras, where Raisel Iglesias came up huge with a strong tenth inning and then Austin Riley became the walk-off hero as his sacrifice fly plated Luke Williams and gave the Braves a truly energizing victory.
Wednesday, June 18
Braves 5, Mets 0
We got further proof that Chris Sale is absolutely locked in at the moment as he threatened to join Spencer Schwellenbach in the 2025 Braves Complete Game Club. Sale came one out away from throwing what would’ve been the second complete game for the Braves in 2025, his first as a Braves pitcher and his 17th complete game as a big leaguer. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be as Brandon Nimmo ruined it with a two-out single in the ninth. Raisel Iglesias finished things off and Chris Sale’s gem helped push Atlanta to a comfortable win.
This felt like one of those vintage games from 2022 or 2023 where the Braves regularly established right out of the gate that this was going to be a painful night in Cobb County for the opposition. Ronald Acuña Jr. crushed the first pitch he saw for a leadoff dinger and then Atlanta added on a couple more runs off of an error and a sacrifice fly. With the way Chris Sale was going, those three runs were more than enough to win — a fifth inning run scored off of a wild pitch and a seventh-inning bomb from Matt Olson were window-dressing that made this look like a dominant win for the Braves.
Thursday, June 19
Braves 7, Mets 1
The Mets were up 1-0 after three innings following an RBI single in the second inning from Ronny Mauricio and that was as good as it got for New.York in this game. I won’t say that’s as good as it got for the Mets in this series as you saw how the first game started but yeah, this was just more Braves dominance in this one. Spencer Strider went six innings and while he didn’t strike out a metric ton of Metropolitan batters, eight strikeouts alongside only one run allowed makes for a lovely night on the mound.
Ozzie Albies tied it up with a single in the fourth inning and then walks became the name of the game for the Braves as they pulled ahead (for good, it turned out) in the fifth inning. Two go-ahead bases-loaded walks gave the Braves control of the game and then a bases-loaded double from Matt Olson in the sixth inning broke it wide open. Drake Baldwin added on an RBI single of his own and from that point forward, the Mets were down for the count as the Braves swept New York right up out of town.
Plain and simple, this is the level of baseball that the Braves will need to play going forward. I’m not saying that they should simply never lose again since that’s impossible but the level of form that they reached over the course of this series is something that they have to maintain going forward. This series is proof of concept that the Braves can not just play with anybody in baseball, they can beat any team in baseball. They just have to keep on stringing together complete games like this and the wins should flow. The talent is herem the process just has to get nailed down so that results should hopefully start evening out.
This was the perfect start to this stretch within the division. It’s not going to get a lot easier, as the Marlins are always willing to at least fight the Braves tooth-and-nail no matter what the situation is and they’ve still got a trip to New York for four games and an encounter with the Phillies before this stretch is over with. Still, sweeping the Mets shows that this team’s still got some fight in it. It’s incredibly frustrating that they’re still a handful of games under .500 this deep into the season but at least we know that the Braves are willing to keep trying to dig themselves out of this mess.