When Braves prospect Luiz Gohara faced Max Scherzer a week ago in Washington, the kid earned his first major league win and out-pitched the two-time Cy Young Award winner on a night when Atlanta handed Scherzer one of his worst losses in an 8-2 rout.
It was a good bet that Scherzer wasn’t about to have anything resembling a repeat performance Tuesday and Gohara would need an outing similar to last week if he hoped to stay with the Nationals ace again.
Didn’t happen, though most agreed Gohara was better in his third start than his final pitching line indicated.
The Nationals got four runs on 11 hits including six doubles against Gohara, who left in the seventh inning of a 4-2 Braves loss in a series opener at SunTrust Park.
“He’s been great,” Braves shortstop Dansby Swanson said. “He’s faced three really good hitting teams, the Rangers and the Nationals twice. I thought he threw the ball pretty well tonight. He threw a lot of strikes. He competed well.”
The defeat assured what had seemed inevitable for several weeks, mathematically eliminating the possibility of the Braves (67-82) avoiding a fourth consecutive season. It’s their longest such stretch of sub-.500 ball since enduring seven consecutive losing seasons from 1984-1990.
Braves center fielder Ender Inciarte exited after four innings due to left-humb soreness, aggravating an injury he initially sustained a week ago when he jammed the thumb at first base while trying to avoid a tag in a game at Washington.
Gohara (1-2) gave up more hits (11) in his third major league start than in his first two starts combined (10 hits in 10 innings), but the 21-year-old left-hander had a second consecutive walk-free outing since issuing four walks in four innings of his major league debut against the Rangers on Sept. 6.
“Pitchers always know, if you’re going to face a team for the second time in a week, you know they’re going to come here stronger to get the win,” Gohard said, “try to do their best against me.”
He had four strikeouts Tuesday after striking out six in six innings of last week’s win at Washington, where Gohara was charged with six hits and two runs, only one of which was earned.
“He battles. He’s a big kid who’s a strike thrower,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “He gets the ball over the plate. I thought he was a little sharper the other day in Washington, and he was still pretty good (Tuesday). I like the fact that he got us into the seventh inning and the kid competes.
“It’s good stuff and this is a really good hitting ballclub, and it’s the second time they saw him, too.”
Gohara needed only six pitches to get through first inning, his fastball topping out at 98 mph. And after giving up a leadoff double off the right-field wall to Ryan Zimmerman to start the second inning, he retired the next three including strikeouts of Howie Kendrick and Michael Taylor.
But after Matt Wieters doubled to start the third inning, the Nationals go to Gohara a bit. After a Scherzer sacrifice bunt, Trea Turner singled to drive in a run, and Anthony Rendon and Ryan Zimmerman added two-out singles in the inning as the Nationals took a 2-0 lead they wouldn’t relinquish.
Six different Nationals had a double against the stocky left-hander. But the absence of walks from the hard-throwing rookie drew notice from teammates and his manager.
“Young and with an arm like that — a lot of times you see a guy who throws that hard kind of sprays the ball all over the place, but he’s been pretty honed in and locked in,” Swanson said. “And I think that’s definitely a good thing moving forward and the confidence that comes from it. A couple of things go our way, maybe some balls put in play aren’t two inches away from somebody’s glove or something, the game may be a different story.”
Scherzer (15-6) limited the Braves to five hits, two runs and one walk with seven strikeouts in seven innings and threw 83 strikes in 112 pitches.
“We had chances,” Snitker said. “We narrowed the gap there. Against a guy like that, it’s almost, ‘let’s keep it closer as long as we can and maybe the next guy (reliever) will bend a little bit.’ But we had some good at-bats off of him. He was sharp, he was tough, but the game was manageable.”
Scherzer was charged with seven runs and six walks in six innings of the Sept. 13 loss at Nationals Park including five runs without recording an out in the seventh inning, when he walked the first three batters of the inning.
On Tuesday, retired the first 11 batters he faced before the Braves got three consecutive two-out singles in the fourth inning from Freddie Freeman, Nick Markakis and Kurt Suzuki, whose hit on a 10-pitch at-bat drove in a run to cut the Nationals’ lead to 2-1.
When Scherzer struck out Gohara to end the third inning, he became only the fourth pitcher to record at least 250 strikeouts in four consecutive seasons, joining Fergie Jenkins, Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson, who had more than 330 strikeouts in four consecutive seasons from 1999 through 2002.
“He’s tough every time you face him,” Swanson said. “A pitcher of that caliber, with that kind of stuff and pitchability, and his fastball command – when his fastball command is good like it was tonight, it’s definitely tough.”
The Nationals pushed the lead back to two runs in the fifth when Jayson Werth doubled and scored on Zimmerman’s single off the glove of third baseman Rio Ruiz, which was initially ruled an error. The ruling was later changed and the run switched from unearned to earned.
“Some of his numbers probably could be misleading tonight,” Swanson said of Gohara’s pitching line. “I mean, there were probably two or three two-out hits that doesn’t go our way and makes the line look a little bit worse than it was. But he competes, throws strikes, challenges guys. It’s fun to play behind when you can be involved in the action at all times.”
The Braves answered with a run in the bottom of the fifth when Lane Adams drew a leadoff walk and scored on Dansby Swanson’s double. But the Nationals pushed their margin back to two runs in the seventh when Turner hit a leadoff double, stole third base and scored on Rendon’s one-out double.
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