Kelly Johnson started the day with a home run against Tom Glavine and finished off the Mets with another homer off Aaron Heilman.

Johnson homered on the first pitch of the game, then hit a tiebreaking, three-run drive in the eighth inning to send the Atlanta Braves to a 9–6 victory yesterday.

A sellout crowd of 55,671 came out on a sunny spring afternoon to watch Glavine face John Smoltz, his golfing buddy and former teammate. Jose Reyes’s three-run triple in the sixth put Glavine and the Mets ahead, but Edgar Renteria erased a 6–3 deficit in the seventh with a three-run homer off Scott Schoeneweis.

Jeff Francoeur reached leading off the eighth when second baseman Jose Valentin was handcuffed by a ball hit straight at him. He let it get past him for an error that would make all the runs in the inning unearned. Heilman (1–2) hit Craig Wilson with a pitch and, with two outs, Johnson homered into the right-field bullpen.

It was the first career multihomer game for Johnson, who struck out four times Saturday against Oliver Perez.

Ex-Met Tyler Yates (1–0) pitched a perfect seventh, Rafael Soriano retired Paul Lo Duca on a flyout with two on to end the eighth and Bob Wickman got three outs for his sixth save in six chances, his 24th in 25 opportunities since the Braves acquired him last summer.

Wickman retired Shawn Green on a grounder with two on to end it.

Smoltz had won both of his previous starts against Glavine. He was staked to leads on Johnson’s first homer and Francoeur’s tworun single off Glavine in the sixth. But after throwing first-pitch strikes to 20 of his first 23 batters, Smoltz developed control problems. Singles by Carlos Delgado and Moises Alou and a one-out walk to Green loaded the bases. Atlanta manager Bobby Cox was ejected for arguing ball four to Green. It was Cox’s 127th ejection, four behind John McGraw ‘s record.

Valentin then dumped a single into short left to drive in a run, pinch-hitter Julio Franco flied to shallow right, and Reyes drove the next pitch into the right-field corner for a 5–3 lead. Lo Duca followed with an RBI single that finished off Smoltz.

New York’s bullpen quickly gave up the lead when Renteria’s homer tied it 6-all, prompting loud boos.

Glavine, who remained 3–10 against the Braves and 0–1 in starts against Smoltz, allowed three runs and seven hits in six innings. Smoltz gave up six runs and nine hits in 5.2 innings.

The competitiveness between the pair showed in the fifth, when Glavine hit a bouncer near the third-base line. Smoltz sprinted off the mound, made a barehanded pickup and an off-balance throw just before crossing into foul territory to retire Glavine at first. Glavine shot his friend a look as he walked back to the dugout, muttered to himself, smiled and looked at Smoltz again.

Johnson homered on the first pitch of the game against the Mets’ Orlando Hernandez on April 8 at Turner Field, and he did it again against Glavine when he deposited a letter-high offering over the right-field wall. The lead stood up until Green homered in the fifth.

Reyes’s two-out single and Lo Duca’s ground-rule double put runners on second and third later in the inning, but Smoltz threw a called third strike past Carlos Beltran — his 2,799th strikeout, passing Cy Young for 18th place.