NEW YORK _ If Monday night's 7-3 win against the Mets wasn't the most improbable of the season for the Braves, then Noah Syndergaard and his New York teammates would probably like to know what was.
The Braves and previously winless rookie Aaron Blair, he of the 8.23 ERA before Monday, faced the Mets and ace Syndergaard in a series opener at Citi Field, with Syndergaard rolling in with a 2.43 ERA and could pitch the National League wild-card game in a couple of weeks.
Blair? Well, he pitched in the Triple-A Governor's Cup playoffs last week, one of two starts he made for Gwinnett while working on adjustments after Braves pitching coach Roger McDowell noticed flaws he'd developed in his delivery.
So what happens Monday? Blair (1-6) doesn't give up a hit until there are two out in the fourth inning and pitches six strong innings (four hits, two runs, one walk, four strikeouts) for his first win in his 13th major league start.
Meanwhile, Syndergaard was replaced with two outs in the fourth inning after giving up eight hits and five runs including a Freddie Freeman opposite-field homer.
Freeman had four hits and three RBIs and rookie Dansby Swanson added three hits and three RBIs for the Braves, who took the series opener from the NL wild-card leaders to run their winning streak to three games, after taking the last two games to win a weekend series against the NL East-leading Nationals.
Freeman's opposite-field homer to start the third inning pushed the Braves' lead to 3-0 and extended his hitting streak to 23 games and on-base streak to 39 games, both career-bests and longest active streaks in the majors. It was his 31st homer, eight more than his career-best before this season, including 13 homers during the on-base streak.
And he was just getting started.
Operating on little sleep since his wife gave birth Thursday to their first child, Freeman added a two-run double in the fourth and a pair of singles, continuing a torrid pace he started in mid-June and ramped up further since the Aug. 2 addition of Matt Kemp to the lineup.
The Braves' eight hits and five runs against Syndergaard in 3 2/3 innings were tied for the most hits he allowed all season, in the fewest innings in which he'd given up that many. Before Monday, he was 4-1 with a 1.36 ERA and .175 opponents' average in his past six starts, with 42 strikeouts and 12 walks in 39 2/3 innings.
In his first time facing the Braves this season, he had five strikeouts with three walks and surrendered two extra-base hits and three RBIs to the sizzling Freeman.
The Braves have eight or more hits in 19 consecutive games, third-longest streak in the Atlanta era and second-longest in a single season, behind a 20-gamer in 1998.
Blair was 0-4 with a 10.64 ERA in his past eight before Monday. But there he was, giving up no hits and one walk to the first 12 batters on a powerful Mets team that had won 11 of its past 14 games and already set a franchise record with 202 homers before Monday, second-most in the NL.
Blair had a no-hitter until Curtis Granderson's two-out single in the fourth inning, and T.J. Rivera hit the next pitch _ a 91-mph fastball _ over the left-field wall. It was the 11th homer allowed by Blair in a 32-inning inning span over seven starts, but the Braves still had a 5-2 lead.
Instead of coming apart after that sequence, this time Blair got back in his groove. He got a groundout to end the inning, and after giving up a leadoff double in the fifth, Blair struck out the next two batters and got Jose Reyes on a pop-up. Other than the fourth inning, no more than one Mets runners reached base in any of Blair's six innings.
Blair became the first Atlanta pitcher ever to make four starts against the same opponent in his first 13 career starts, and before Monday he was 0-2 with an 8.04 ERA in three against the Mets. He was staked to a lead Monday and got the kind of "shut-down" innings the Braves have preached but too often haven't received from young starters this season.
Freeman's two-run, two-out double in the fourth inning _ also to the opposite field, just inside the left-field foul line _ pushed the lead to 5-0 and gave Freeman 78 extra-base hits, the most by a Brave since Andruw Jones had 78 in 2005.
He needs two more extra-base hits to join his friend and mentor Chipper Jones as the only Atlanta-era Braves to have 80 or more in a season. Chipper had 87 in his 1999 National League MVP season, when his career-high 45 homers included seven against the Mets.
Freeman has hit more home runs in his career against the Mets (18) than any other team, and this season he's hit .397 (27-for-68) with 11 extra-base hits against them.
