DEL.ICIO.USMLB: ATLANTA BRAVES
Diamondbacks blank Braves
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Saturday, May 16, 2009
As much as the Braves have played like a postseason contender on the road, at home they’ve played like a team going nowhere fast.
For that, Max Scherzer and the Arizona Diamondbacks can be thankful.
Brant Sanderlin/bsanderlin@ajc.com
Kenshin Kawakami (2-5) gave up five hits and three runs in five innings. He retired the last eight batters he faced before he was removed for a pinch hitter.
Brant Sanderlin/bsanderlin@ajc.com
Braves left fielder Garret Anderson tangles with a fan while chasing a foul ball in the second inning.
Scherzer finally got his first major league win Saturday night, pitching six scoreless innings as Arizona rolled to a 12-0 rout at Turner Field against a Braves team that’s punchless in its home park.
“That turned into a nightmare,” said manager Bobby Cox, whose Braves suffered their worst loss and have the second-worst home record (6-10) in the majors.
They have the third-best road record (12-8), and on Wednesday they completed a 6-2 trip to Florida, Philadelphia and New York. Saturday, there was no sign of momentum from that trip or Friday’s win.
Kenshin Kawakami (2-5) gave up three runs and five hits in five innings to lose for the fourth time in his past five starts, with one quality start of six innings or more and three earned runs or fewer in that span.
Things degenerated late when Arizona rolled up nine runs in the final three innings against relievers Jeff Bennett and Buddy Carlyle, capped by Chris Snyder’s grand slam off of Carlyle in a six-run ninth.
The Braves are 3-10 in their past 13 home games and 9-3 in their past 12 road games. They averaged 2.9 runs in that stretch at Turner Field, and more than 5.3 runs in those road games.
“You tend to have two or three or four of these [games] a year, and tonight we were on the other end of it,” said right fielder Jeff Francoeur, whose hitless night included a strikeout with two runners on and one out in the second inning.
“Still, we come back out tomorrow and have [Derek] Lowe going and have a chance to win two out of three. That’s the goal [every series].”
A crowd of 30,162 saw the Braves produce only one extra-base hit, a Yunel Escobar sixth-inning double, and watched Kawakami labor through the early innings against an Arizona team that lost 10 of its previous 12 games.
The Braves ran themselves out of a scoring opportunity in the first inning when they had runners on the corners with one out, after singles by Escobar and Chipper Jones. Scherzer faked to third and threw to first to pick off Jones, which started an unusual double play as Escobar was caught off third base.
Four of Arizona’s five hits in the first three innings were for extra bases, including consecutive doubles by Mark Reynolds and Eric Byrnes to start the second inning and a double by Felipe Lopez to begin the third.
“Kawakami struggled in the first two innings,” Cox said of the 33-year-old Japanese rookie, who so far hasn’t lived up to his three-year, $23 million contract. “I thought he got better [after those two innings].”
Scherzer (1-3) had been 0-7 in 22 previous games including 13 starts — despite owning an impressive 3.17 career ERA. When the Diamondbacks scored three runs early against Kawakami, it marked the third time in his major league career that Scherzer received more than two support runs while he was in a game.
Scherzer has worked 9? scoreless innings in three games at Turner Field, including two relief appearances last season.
Any lingering thoughts of a Braves’ comeback ended when Gerardo Parra hit a two-run triple off rookie James Parr in the seventh, to push the lead to 5-0. Parr walked the seventh and eighth hitters in the order to start the inning.
More damage was added at the expense of Bennett and Carlyle, whose ERA climbed to 8.27. Carlyle has given up grand slams in each of his past two outings.
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