ATLANTA — Call it a landslide Super Tuesday win for a franchise in desperate need of a jolt.
Zack Wheeler simply refused to crumble in his major league debut last night after Matt Harvey flirted with a no-hitter in the afternoon as the Mets swept the Braves at Turner Field.
Overcoming early wildness, Wheeler, the 23-year-old righty, provided the earliest of possible indications the Mets have another special talent to join Harvey in this rotation.
With Wheeler unleashing high-90s heat over six shutout innings, the Mets completed the sweep with a 6-1 victory.
Harvey was even more impressive in Game 1, taking a no-hitter into the seventh inning before he and the Mets held on for a 4-3 victory.
Wheeler (1-0) walked four batters over the first three innings and seemed like a longshot to get beyond the fifth, but began rolling in the middle innings. He finished with four hits allowed, five walks and seven strikeouts over 102 pitches.
Anthony Recker’s two-run homer in the seventh against Paul Maholm gave Wheeler his run support. The Mets added four runs in the eighth to further solidify Wheeler’s hold on the win.
On the same day as Wheeler’s highly anticipated debut, Harvey was a pitbull marking his territory.
If Harvey is going to be supplanted as the Mets’ top dog, it will have to be earned. That point resonated as the Mets ace was dominating the Braves into the seventh.
Harvey watched his no-hit bid end on Jason Heyward’s squib single up the first-base line leading off the seventh — on which Lucas Duda never retreated to cover first base — before the Braves threatened to steal the game in the eighth with three runs, all of which were charged to Harvey.
“I think I lost a little bit of focus, a little bit of adrenaline, and it happens,” Harvey said. “It was one of those days where I got a little extra tired and I’m kicking myself for not speaking up.”
Harvey (6-1) allowed three earned runs on three hits with 13 strikeouts and three walks over seven-plus innings. Of his 116 pitches, 44 topped 95 mph on the radar gun. That included a 100-mph heater to strike out Heyward ending the first inning.
Of Wheeler’s 102 pitches, 36 topped 95 mph.
Though Harvey denied using Wheeler’s arrival as a motivational tactic, manager Terry Collins said his ultra-competitive ace might have been energized by the situation.
“Now Zack is here with all the publicity,” Collins said. “He’s the guy here with all the attention, so to Zack [Harvey] might have said, ‘I’m still the guy here.’ ’’
Harvey suffered from a questionable scoring decision in the eighth, when Dan Uggla’s grounder off David Wright’s glove was ruled a hit. That meant all three runs the Braves scored in the inning were earned.
The Braves loaded the bases with nobody out against Harvey in the eighth and received a two-run single from Jordan Schafer, facing LaTroy Hawkins. Heyward’s double off Duda’s glove then sliced the Mets’ lead to 4-3 before Bobby Parnell got the inning’s final out and pitched a scoreless ninth.
Jordany Valdespin’s bases-loaded walk in the eighth gave the Mets a cushion, before Omar Quintanilla delivered a sacrifice fly later in the inning, extending the lead to 4-0.
The Mets got on the board in the first when Daniel Murphy raced home from second base on Marlon Byrd’s infield single to third base. Chris Johnson double-pumped on the play, Byrd beat the throw by a step and Murphy ran threw third-base coach Tim Teufel’s stop sign.
John Buck’s homer leading off the fourth gave the Mets a 2-0 lead.
Harvey, who is next scheduled to pitch on Sunday in Philadelphia, couldn’t take complete satisfaction in his performance yesterday.
“I shouldn’t have gone out there [for the eighth] knowing that I was pretty much done,” said Harvey, who had already thrown 105 pitches when he batted for himself and made the last out of the top of the eighth. “Obviously I gave them a chance to come back and gave our team a chance to lose. In the long run we won the game, that’s ultimately all that matters.”