Mets 4, Braves 2 - Citi Field, Bandbox

"Yes, these new dimensions please me."

Just about as perfect a Saturday afternoon that could be imagined in Queens on Saturday, as R.A. Dickey dealt with the wind conditions on his knuckleball pretty well, and the Mets got some power from their 3rd and 6th hitters to beat the Braves.  

Wright continued his hot start to the season with three more hits, including an opposite field solo homer in the first inning, that, thanks to a handy little overlay from SNY, we saw would have been out even with the old wall configuration.  Wright would have had four hits, but he was robbed on a screamer down the left field line by Juan Francisco, who bears more than a passing resemblance to Pablo Sandoval.  

Duda hit one out in the fourth that clearly landed in between the new blue wall and the old black one, so what would have been a wallbanging double last season instead was a dinger.  Maybe Duda heard the commentators make that exact observation, because he was able to hit another one down the line that was comfortably out. 

As for Dickey, he was cruising along until he ran into a little trouble in the fifth when his knuckler began to be affected by the wind.  He walked Michael Bourn in front of Martin Prado, who took advantage of Dickey's attempts to throw a get-me-over strike to drive a homer down the left field line.  That was all the Braves would get, however, as Dickey went six allowing just those two runs, and the bullpen had another superb afternoon with scoreless innings from Mecha Parnell, Rauch, and Francisco.  

There are plenty of other encouraging signs.  Josh Thole had a two-out RBI single in the fifth, and his second straight multi-hit game, Daniel Murphy is clicking, and although he only had one hit (a double off the wall) he also took the ball the opposite direction with authority on his outs.  Also, Kirk Nieuwenhuis had two hits in his Major League debut, as he filled in for Mr. Glass in center field.   

On the downside, Ike Davis is still hitless, and was barking at the ump a little bit after taking a called third strike to strand two and Ruben Tejada is also batting .000, although his defense has been superb.  

The $25-$46 million man, Jon Niese, will be on the mound tomorrow as the Mets go for the sweep, and I'm excited to see how he looks early on, as there are a lot of people expecting big things for him this season.  (Just not his nose anymore.)