Jones Provides Braves With All They Need : Baseball: His two homers are the difference in 2-1 victory over Mets, extending Atlanta’s lead in NL East to two.

Chipper Jones used to dread the sight of a left-handed pitcher. Not anymore.

Jones homered from both sides of the plate, including a tiebreaking solo shot in the eighth inning against left-hander Dennis Cook, and the Atlanta Braves beat the New York Mets, 2-1, Tuesday night to strike the first blow in their NL East showdown.

Atlanta pushed its lead over the second-place Mets to two games.

“Momentum is everything in a series like this,” said John Smoltz, who pitched seven strong innings for the Braves. “Obviously, we wanted to try to win the first game.”

Jones made it happen, hitthing a home run from the right-handed batter’s box after Cook (10-5) was brought in specifically to face the Brave third baseman.

Statistically, the move made sense. The switch-hitting Jones was four for nine with a home run against New York’s previous pitcher, right-hander Turk Wendell, but only one for seven against Cook.

“He had already hit one left-handed, so there was not much discussion,” Met Manager Bobby Valentine said. “We thought we had a lot of things going for us, including the wind blowing in from left field. But it didn’t work out.”

Jones, who homered from the left-handed box against Met starter Rick Reed in the first, lined a fastball from Cook into the left-field seats for his 43rd homer and 100th RBI.

“It’s one game,” Cook said. “. It’s a pothole in the road. Their bullpen did a better job than ours. That’s the bottom line.”

Prior to this year, Jones had never homered from both sides in the same game; in fact, only 12 of his 108 homers had come as a right-handed hitter.

This season, Jones has homered 14 times as a righty, three of those in games when he also homered from the left side. It was the 12th two-homer game of his career, including a July 2 contest against the Mets.

“My confidence is equal from both sides of the plate for the first time in my career,” Jones said. “In the past, I might have said, ‘Dang, I wanted to hurt someone as a left-hander.’ Now, I’m like, ‘So what.’ I know I can do damage as a right-handed hitter, too.”

Mike Remlinger (10-1) picked up the win and John Rocker struck out the side in the ninth for his 34th save.

The two best teams in the major leagues are finishing the regular season by playing six of their last 12 regular-season games against each other. A three-game series at Turner Field will be followed by another three-game set at Shea Stadium next week.

After Jones’ 42nd homer, the Mets tied the score in the third by putting together three singles against Smoltz, who surrendered the run-scoring hit by Edgardo Alfonzo. After that, the two starters settled into a pitcher’s duel.

The injury plagued Braves won even though clean-up hitter Brian Jordan, bothered by a sore right hand, didn’t start for the second game in a row. He entered the game as a pinch-hitter in the eighth--he walked and stole second--then played right field in the final inning.