‘95 Braves take 3 of 4 from ‘69 Amazin’s to eliminate New York from post season considerations.

The Amazin’s, fresh off their sweep of the Big Red Machine, were only 1 game out of 1st and needed some big performances from their squad of over achievers. Game 1 featured the normal drama that those Amazin’ Mets seem to stumble into. Young fireballer Gary Gentry was mowing down the Braves and looking better than future HOF’er John Smoltz when umpire Doug Harvey call a borderline pitch a ball. Gentry, who had fanned 4 batters in his 4 innings of work lost his cool and said the “magic word” to the veteran Harvey and was shown the door. Most teams would have crumbled, but Gentry leaving games early had become commonplace all season for the Mets and so did having Nolan Ryan ready to take his place. If Gentry is a fireballer, Ryan is a flamethrower without peer. The young right hander from Alvin Texas came on to throw 3 scoreless innings to notch the win and improve his season record to 5-1 (3.00). Lefties Jack DiLauro and Tug McGraw combined to shutout the Braves over the final 5 outs. New York made the most of their 5 hits and some questionable fielding by the Braves in this win. Game 2 was just as tense as game 1. With the score knotted at 4 all thanks to a Tommie Agee homer in the 7th the Braves were able to get to reliever Cal Koonce in the 8th when David Justice singled home Fred “Crime Dog” McGriff with 2 outs. Art Shamsky, who went 4 for 5 in the game with a homer singled with 2 outs, but Mark Wohlers was able to fan Duffy Dyer, who had 2 hits that day, for the final out of the game. Game 3 saw the Mets season come to and end as the 1969 Cy Young Award winner, Tom “Terrific” Seaver was anything but terrific. Seaver (2-5, 2.53) gave up 7 runs on 6 hits over 8 innings worth of work, while his opponent Greg Maddux (6-3, 1.69) put in a Cy Young performance of his own. Maddux fanned 6 as he went the distance and allowed just 6 hits. A pair of 3 run homers (David Justice & Ryan Klesko) would be the big hits that Seaver could not recover from. The finale saw a pair of lefties (Jerry Koosman & Tom Glavine) battle pitch for pitch until the 8th when the Braves would score 2 key insurance runs off of Kooz to put the game away. Glavine (3-1, 3.55) has made a career of killing the Met franchise as an opponent and as a member took great delight in officially eliminating the Amazin’s from post season consideration. Chipper Jones, who also takes great delight in torturing New York went 3 for 4. New York finished the season with a .231 team batting average, which explains fully why Koosman’s record was 2-6, even though he had a 2.38 ERA.