This was a great game to watch and had something of a playoff feel. Granted, the Braves were down several key players due to injury (Javy Lopez, Kenny Lofton, Jeff Blauser) but they still strung 6 hits in a row off Jones in the 1st, including opposing pitcher Denny Neagle's only double of the season that drove in two. But the Mets battled right back. In the 2nd inning, Bernard Gilkey was robbed of a 2-run homer by Andruw Jones, but Huskey followed a batter later by hitting a 2-run shot down the LF line. In the 4th, Huskey went deep again, this time a 3-run dinger that was an absolute moonshot. The Mets tied it an inning later when a John Olerud grounder ate up 2B Mark Lemke, allowing Manny Alexander (making his only start as a Met at 3B) to score from second. That was the last batter Neagle would face, as he wound up with his shortest outing of the season.

Chad Fox and Mike Cather were the next Atlanta pitchers, both making their ML debuts. They combined for 4 shutout innings. Closer Mark Wohlers entered in the 9th and, with 1 out, got Carl Everett to ground one to 1B but Fred McGriff let it get by him, and then Michael Tucker threw the ball back in to nobody, allowing Everett to go all the way to third base. Matt Franco pinch hit for Alexander needing just a sac fly to put the Mets ahead, but he instead hit another grounder to McGriff, who this time fielded cleanly and threw home to get Everett trying to score. Olerud struck out for the third time in the game (his only game with 3 Ks in all of 1997) to end the inning.

Greg McMichael was awesome out of the bullpen for New York, striking out 4 while pitching a scoreless 8th and 9th, setting the stage for Ochoa's heroics. His pinch-hit homer was also a bomb like Huskey's and was his second to last as a member of the Mets. John Franco then danced around a leadoff single by Ryan Klesko, a wild pitch and a walk to get the save. The win gave the Mets their first series victory in Atlanta since 1992, and their first in a 4-game series since 1990.

Credit goes to Bobby Jones for sticking this one out, but I'm sure he was sick of seeing Atlanta in 1997, as he held a 12.34 ERA in 3 starts against them. The unsung hero in this game could be Rey Ordonez, who made three fantastic defensive plays that saved several runs from scoring. In the 4th, with a runner on 2nd, he dove on a Chipper Jones grounder headed for CF and threw him out to end the inning. In the 7th, with runners on 1st and 2nd and 2 down, he leapt and caught an Andruw Jones liner that would have given the Braves the lead. He also made the final out of the game, snaring Tony Graffanino's grounder to his right and wisely throwing out the lead runner at 3B. It all makes up for his 0-for-5 at the plate, and another boneheaded head-first slide into first trying to beat out a groundball.