ATLANTA — Tom Glavine just didn’t feel right while warming up in the bullpen, and he still was struggling to control his pitches in the first inning. No, this wasn’t just another game for the 42-year-old left-hander. Glavine calmed down after a very shaky start against his former team, retiring his last 17 batters to lead the Atlanta Braves past the Mets 6–1 in the opener of a day-night doubleheader yesterday.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would go 17 up, 17 down after that first inning,” said Glavine, who spent the previous five seasons with the Mets before re-signing with his original team over the winter. “There was no reason to expect that.”

Indeed, Glavine (2–1) looked as though he might not make it out of the first.

On the sixth pitch of the game, Luis Castillo lofted a fly ball that barely cleared the wall in left for his first homer of the season. The Mets then loaded the bases with one out on singles by David Wright and Ryan Church, sandwiched around a walk to Carlos Beltran.

But Moises Alou hit a hard liner right at third baseman Chipper Jones, and right fielder Jeff Francoeur hauled in a fly ball to deep right by slumping Carlos Delgado to get the Braves out the inning trailing just 1–0. After that, Glavine was unhittable. The Mets went three-up, three-down over the next five innings before the starter, bothered a bit by a sore right knee, turned it over to the bullpen.

Brian McCann homered and drove in three runs for the Braves, who improved the NL’s best home record to 17–5. They are 6–16 away from Turner Field.