Markakis takes trip home for one day

NEW YORK — Right fielder Nick Markakis was away from the team Wednesday after requesting permission to return to his home in the Baltimore area for what manager Brian Snitker called a personal matter.

Markakis returned home late Tuesday, after getting two hits, including an RBI double in a 4-3 loss to the Mets at Citi Field. He missed Wednesday’s series fifinale in New York and is expected to miss at least the fifirst game of a four-game, season- ending series against the Marlins that starts today in Miami.

“Just a personal thing,” Snitker said. “Hopefully he’ll be back for the weekend in Miami. He just had to go home to take care of some personal thing.”

Markakis, 33, attended Woodstock High School, but he and his wife, Christina, live with their three children outside Baltimore, where he played the fifirst nine seasons of his major league career.

He played in 156 of the Braves’ 157 games before Wednesday, with 151 starts.

First walk: Left-hander A.J. Minter made it to his 14th major league relief appearance before he fifinally walked a batter, just two games short of the major league record for such walk-free games at the outset of a career.

M inter didi tin the ninth inning of Tuesday’s loss, pitching in the most high-leverage situation he’s been in so far in a big league career that began Aug. 23.

Minter has 21 strikeouts with one walk in 13⅓ innings, with a 3.38 ERA and .231 opponents’ average.

“He got on a nice little run,” Snitker said. “He’s a confifident kid. He trusts his stuffffffffffff, he’s a confifident guy. He’s got the stuffff to get anybody out, but that was a little more high-leverage thing than he’s ever experienced here. Just take it and learn from it.”

The major league record for appearances without a walk to begin a career is 15 games by the Giants’ Hunter Strickland in 2014-15.

Minter had been used in earlier innings until Tuesday, when he entered with the score tied to start the ninth inning and gave up a leadoffff single to Kevin Plawecki, whose two-run homer in the seventh inning accounted for the only runs offff starter R.A. Dickey in 6⅔ innings.

After Plawecki’s leadoff hit, Minter walked Dominic Smith, the 51st MLB batter he faced. Travis Taijeron followed with a walk-offff single to give Minter a loss in his fifirst big league decision.

The Braves project Minter as a top set-up man or potential closer, and no one would be surprised if he’s in a prominent role in the team’s 2018 bullpen from opening day.

Anotherstart? TheBraves haven’t decided who’ll start Sunday’s season fifinale, but if Dickey wants the assignment, it’s his.

Dickey took a two-hit shutout to the seventh Tuesday against the Mets but gave up two runs and exited with two outs in the inning. He got no decision in what could be the last start of his career, unless he pitches Sunday.

The Braves hold an $8 million option for 2018, but the 42-year-old knuckleballer hasn’t decided if he’ll pitch again, and the Braves haven’t announced if they will pick up the option if he does.

Rookie Max Fried, who pitched the second game of Monday’s doubleheader against the Mets, is another option to start Sunday.