Mike Soroka took the mound for the Atlanta Braves on Monday night for the first time since suffering two separate tears to his right Achilles tendon.

Soroka pitched six innings in the Braves' 7-2 loss to the Oakland Athletics.

"Today was a big one," he said, "a day like today and the people that believed in me. I always said I was going to be back here for the people that believed in me, not the ones that said I couldn't."

Soroka was called up from Triple-A Gwinnett to start on Memorial Day -- a whopping 1,030 days between outings for the Braves' 2020 Opening Day starter. He allowed four runs on five hits, struck out three and walked two. 

"When I think about how long ago it really was, to be honest with you, we can even go back to 2019 because there was nobody in the stands in 2020 so it didn't really feel like big league baseball that year," Soroka said.