When Matt Wisler pitches like he did in his previous two starts, it’s easy to forget he still has only about two-thirds of a season in the big leagues. The first inning Tuesday against the Red Sox was a reminder.
The Red Sox batted around in a four-run first inning and cruised to an 11-4 rout against the Braves, whose 4-16 majors-worst record matched the 1988 Braves and 1914 Boston Braves for lousiest 20-game start in franchise history, going back at least to 1913. They are a staggering 1-12 at home.
Travis Shaw hit a mammoth three-run homer in the first inning, and the Braves stretched their own rather remarkable homerless streak to 15 games. That’s the longest drought for any team in the Wild Card Era and longest for the franchise since the 1946 Boston Braves had a 16-game homerless stretch.
The Braves trailed 6-2 before things spiraled in the ninth inning, when rookie Ryan Weber gave up five runs on six hits including five extra-base hits.
David Price (3-0) matched a career-high with 14 strikeouts in eight innings, including the last five batters he faced. The left-hander entered with a 7.06 ERA and allowed just six singles, two runs and two walks, improving to 3-1 with a 2.00 ERA and 37 strikeouts in 27 innings over four starts against the Braves.
Wisler (0-2) was charged with five runs, five hits and three walks with three strikeouts in five innings, and also hit a batter and had a questionable wild pitch.
“In the first inning I walked a couple of guys and got behind on Shaw,” said Wisler, who allowed one unearned run in six innings against the Dodgers Thursday and had a 2.53 ERA in 10 games (eight starts) since early September. “That 2-1 pitch, I looked at the replay and it actually wasn’t that bad of a pitch. Just in that situation I’ve got to get beat oppo (opposite field), I can’t let a lefty like that get a pitch to pull.”
Most of the damage against him came in the 38-pitch first inning: Three hits, two walks and a hit batter.
“That’s my next step now is trying to limit those big innings,” Wisler said. “In my four starts I’ve had 27 innings and three innings have cost me 10 runs. I’ve got to find a way, that’s the next step forward is eliminating those.”
The Braves trimmed the lead to 4-2 with single runs in the first and fourth innings, but the Red Sox tacked on a run against Wisler in the fifth when Dustin Pedroia hit a leadoff double and later scored on a wild pitch.
After the Braves got two runners on base via a single and error with two out in the sixth, Price struck out Kelly Johnson, beginning a stretch of seven consecutive batters he retired including six by strikeout.
“His command was impeccable as the game went on,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. “Both sides of the plate. He really dominated the inside part of the plate against our right-handed hitters later in the game. We had a chance earlier in the game to get him, and we didn’t.”
The Braves got a run on three consecutive two-out singles in the first inning, but after a walk loaded the bases, Drew Stubbs struck out to end the inning.
They loaded the bases again with two singles and a walk in the fourth inning, but Wisler’s sacrifice fly accounted for the only run before Nick Markakis popped out to strand two runners.
“He kept me off-balance in different innings,” said Braves rookie infielder Daniel Castro, who was 0-for-4 with a seventh-inning strikeout against Price. “The first inning he was throwing me a few sliders, then the second time around he was throwing some change-ups. He kept switching it up.”
Castro, playing second base, made the defensive play of the game when he slid for an over-the-shoulder catch on a pop up in shallow right field. It bounced from his glove, but Castro grabbed the ball out of the air with his bare hand and then threw to first base to complete an inning-ending double play.
Jeff Francoeur had a two-out RBI single in the first inning and a leadoff single in the fourth, and he’s 9-for-20 with nine singles this season against lefties.
