Yoenis Cespedes homers in return to lead Mets in Opening Day win over Braves

As long as the Mets had to wait to play their first game of the season, nobody waited longer than Yoenis Cespedes. Nobody capitalized quite like him, either.

Returning to the majors after an absence of two years and four days, Cespedes homered in the Mets’ 1-0 Opening Day win against the Braves on Friday, a series of events that answered a bunch of looming questions.

Yes, Cespedes can still hit, three surgeries removed from when he last played on July 20, 2018. His rocket to leftfield — a loud crack of the bat met immediately by excited yells from the Mets dugout — against Atlanta reliever Chris Martin in the seventh inning ended the scoreless tie.

Yes, Edwin Diaz is still the Mets’ closer, at least for the day. He worked around a Freddie Freeman walk in the ninth, retiring Matt Adams — who requested and received his release from the Mets last weekend — for the final out.

And yes, baseball is back, mid-pandemic. Citi Field was empty and quiet aside from the fake crowd noise pumped in over the public-address system, the only dancing in the stands done by mascots Mr. and Mrs. Met.

Jacob deGrom did not look like he was pitching in his first real game in 303 days. He struck out eight and walked one across five shutout frames, extending his scoreless innings streak to 28, the longest runless run in the majors and the best of his career. The last time a team scored against him: Sept. 9.

The Braves’ only hit against deGrom came with two outs in the third, when Ronald Acuna Jr. snuck a slow, broken-bat grounder up the middle for a single. The only other baserunner deGrom allowed was Freeman, who drew a two-out walk in the first. Neither Acuna nor Freeman advanced to second.

Atlanta righthander Mike Soroka — who last year was one of the best pitchers not named deGrom and one of the best rookies not named Pete Alonso — was just as good. He held the Mets to four hits and no runs in six innings. The Braves pulled him after 69 pitches.

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