Kemp’s two homers not enough to lift Braves over Mets

A look around Major League Baseball’s NL East race today.

Thursday’s scores

N.Y. Mets 6, Atlanta 2

Cincinnati 7, Philadelphia 4

Miami 4, Washington 3, 10 innings

Friday’s games

Atlanta (Foltynewicz 0-0) at Pittsburgh (Nova 0-0), 1:05 p.m.

Washington (Scherzer 0-0) at Philadelphia (Velasquez 0-0), 3:05 p.m.

Miami (Chen 0-0) at N.Y. Mets (Wheeler 0-0), 7:10 p.m.

Washington Nationals 2-1

▪ Daniel Murphy and Ryan Zimmerman both had two hits (the Nationals only had eight) against the Marlins, and both are off to a hot start, hitting better than .400 in the opening series.

▪ Gio Gonzalez allowed seven hits and no runs while striking out seven in six innings of work.

New York Mets 2-1

▪ Matt Harvey (1-0) won for the first time since May 30, beating the Braves by going 6 2/3 innings.

▪ Mets leadoff hitter Jose Reyes singled in the seventh, ending his 0-for-12 start to the season.

Atlanta Braves 1-2, 1 GB

▪ Jaime Garcia lost his first Atlanta start after eight seasons with St. Louis. He allowed four earned runs in six innings.

▪ Matt Kemp had two solo home runs for the Braves’ only runs.

▪ Braves leadoff hitter Ender Inciarte reached on an infield hit in the eighth, his first hit in 13 at-bats this season.

▪ Brandon Phillips’ hitting streak in road games against the New York Mets stopped at 35 as he went 0-for-3.

▪ The Braves changed their rotation, and Foltynewicz (9-5 last year) will start Friday’s series opener at Pittsburgh. R.A. Dickey (10-15 with Toronto) was pushed back to Saturday.

Philadelphia Phillies 1-2, 1 GB

▪ Daniel Nava hit two home runs in his debut for the Phillies, who blew a 4-1 lead against Cincinnati. Nava’s two home runs matched his total from his past two years in the majors.

▪ Clay Buchholz gave up four earned runs in five innings in his Phillies debut.

Miami Marlins 1-2, 1 GB

▪ David Phelps (1-1) earned the team’s first win with a scoreless ninth inning.

▪ The Marlins scored two runs in the eighth, one in the ninth and one in the 10th for the win.

Around the Division

Sounds like the Braves are excited about adding Ryan Howard.

Matt Harvey looked like his old self against the Braves.

Buchholz couldn’t hold the lead for the Phillies on Thursday.

It was a long night for the Nationals on Thursday, but it was worth it for the Marlins.

This story was originally published April 7, 2017 at 8:51 AM with the headline "Kemp’s two homers not enough to lift Braves over Mets."