IWOTM, but there’s a distinct difference between the Mets’ stud prospects and their retread roster-fillers. Tonight’s win, and relative offensive explosion, was against the latter.

The Braves got three runs in the fourth inning off Shaun Marcum off a pair of base hits followed by a three-run homer by Chris Johnson. Baserunning minimalism worked that inning; B.J. Upton declined to try to go first-to-third on Dan Uggla’s single prior to Johnson’s at-bat. CJ allowed him to jog home, hitting his fourth bomb of the season. The Braves were up 3-0 at the end of that inning.

Kris Medlen was awesome pitching, going seven-plus innings, striking out seven, and giving up just six hits. This could realistically have been a game in which the Braves never lost that lead, but for one defensive lapse. After two base hits to start the top of the fifth, Medlen got John Buck to hit a comebacker to the mound. Medlen spun around and tried to get the lead runner at third, but the angle was awkward, Johnson was still on his way to the bag, the throw was offline, and the ball trickled into no-man’s land in foul ground behind the bag at third. Both runners scored and Buck wound up at second, from where he then scored on a well-placed Kirk Nieuwenhuis bloop .

The Braves got the lead back in the bottom of the fifth. Before I tell you about the bottom of the fifth, I want to tell you about a trip to New Orleans I took about four Mardi Gras ago. My M.O. any time I go to NOLA is to get hammered in the Quarter, then walk down Canal Street at the end of the night for a blackjack nightcap at Harrah’s. This isn’t necessarily sound long-term financial strategy, but this particular trip, I couldn’t lose. Sixteen and the dealer’s showing seven? Gimme that five! Twelve and dealer’s got an ace? I’ll wait for you to bust, sir. I can’t explain it. I barely remembered most of it then, and remember less now. I just know that both nights I was there that year, I walked out of that casino with about $100 more than I walked in with. Given that I was staying for free with a friend and drinking cans of cheap beer out of a backpack most of the time, I actually turned a profit going to New Orleans. This has not happened since, and probably will not again.

Anyway, what I’m getting to is this: Jordan Schafer led off the bottom of the fifth with a double. Schafer is fast and can score from second on most any base hit. Andrelton Simmons was the next batter, and (you guessed it) Fredi Gonzalez had him sacrifice to move Schafer to third.

So now there’s one out, and Schafer can score not just on any base hit, but on any wild pitch! Marcum had thrown 971 major league innings prior to today and thrown 18 wild pitches; that’s a WP every 54 innings, roughly. Effectively, Fredi traded an out for an extra 2%-and-change chance that Schafer would get home that inning. But sure enough, after walking Freddie Freeman and striking out Justin Upton, Marcum threw a pitch in the dirt that got away from Buck just enough for Schafer to bust down the line and score. Blackjack!

B.J. Upton rendered the whole episode moot with a double that scored Freeman and put the Braves ahead 5-3, but the inning ended after that with an Uggla strikeout, the second unintentional out of the inning.

Fortunately, that was all the Braves needed. Medlen pitched without further incident into the eighth, Luis Avilan put the eighth away, and Craig Kimbrel was just filthy in the ninth. Kimbrel struck out the first two Mets (like, didn’t-have-a-chance-in-hell style strikeouts) and got a lazy flyout to end the game. It was vintage 2012 Kimbrel, and it was good to see.

Game 5 of the world’s worst National League Division Series is tomorrow. It’s been real, Mets, but it’s time we started seeing other teams.