Until the ninth inning Friday it looked as if the Braves, mired in one of their worst stretches of baseball in nearly three decades, would be able to use big performances from their opening day starter and their best hitter to to finally snap out of the funk for at least one night.
Julio Teheran pitched six strong innings and made big pitches when he needed them most, Freddie Freeman had three hits including two doubles, and Nick Swisher’s pinch single in the eighth scored Freeman and gave the Braves a 2-1 lead.
But when manager Fredi Gonzalez tried to get a two-inning save out of Arodys Vizcaino, the hard-throwing rookie gave up the tying run in the ninth, and Michael Taylor’s three-run homer off Brandon Cunniff in the 10th gave the Nationals a 5-2 walkoff win at Nationals Park. It was the 10th consecutive loss for the Braves and their 17th in 18 games.
“I liked everything about the ballgame except the ending,” said Gonzalez, whose Braves are 0-8 this season at Nationals Parks. “And you know what I liked about the ending? We didn’t walk anybody. They got three hits to beat us. Right now, that’s a positive.”
Bryce Harper led off the Nationals’ 10th by punching a single through the left side of the infield against rookie left-hander Matt Marksberry. Ryan Zimmerman followed with a hard-bouncing single up the middle against rookie Cunniff, and pinch-hitter Taylor drove a 1-o slider to the center-field bleachers to hand the Braves their 11th consecutive road loss.
Former Brave Yunel Escobar led off the Nationals’ ninth with a double, advanced on a sacrifice, and scored the tying run on Matt den Dekker’s two-out pinch-hit single, after Vizcaino struck out Wilson Ramos.
“I feel good that (Gonzalez) gave me the opportunity,” said Vizcaino, who had 21 scoreless appearances out of 22 before Friday. “It didn’t work the way I would have liked it to, but I’m happy to get that opportunity. The pitches I threw, I located. But they got the bat on the ball.”
Jayson Werth followed den Dekker with a single through the left side of the infield before sidearmer Peter Moylan replaced Vizcaino with runners on first and second.
In the eighth, Vizcaino walked Harper to start the inning, then struck out hot-hitting Ryan Zimmerman before getting Clint Robinson to line into an inning-ending double play on a nice reaction play by first baseman Freeman.
“I didn’t want anybody else facing the middle of that lineup in the eighth inning,” Gonzalez said of the decision to use Vizcaino in the eighth. “He’s our best guy, he’s going to face Harper, Zimmerman and Robinson. And at that point we still were undecided – if he goes out there and gives you a quick inning, then let him go back out there.”
Before Friday, the Braves’ 1-16 stretch was their worst in a 17-game period since 1977, when they lost 17 in a row during April and May. They are 12-39 going back to July 8, including 2-24 on the road in that period.
Teheran had one of his best and most tough-minded starts of the season, limiting the Nationals to one run, five hits and four walks (one intentional) in six innings, with four strikeouts.
“There was a situation there in the sixth inning where you could have taken him out of the game,” Gonzalez said, “but the way we’ve been going, it was his game. We were getting close to the pitch count mark, where he got tired (before), and three times through the lineup and that kind of stuff. But for me, it was his game to win or his game to lose, and he stepped up and gave us an hell of an opportunity to win the game today.”
He threw 114 pitches and worked out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the sixth with the score tied, 1-1.
“I really wanted to win, I wanted to push my team to a win in this game,” Teheran said.
Freeman, always a thorn in the side of Nationals pitchers, went 3-for-4 with two doubles and an intentional walk, including a leadoff double in the eighth. He scored from second one out later on Swisher’s single. Freeman has hit .413 with 25 extra-base hits in his past 45 games against the Nationals.
Teheran gave up a two-out homer to Harper in the first inning, but worked out of trouble in three other innings when the Nationals had at least two on base with less than two outs.
The Nationals loaded the bases in the sixth with three consecutive one-out singles, but Teheran struck out Ian Desmond and got Jose Lobaton to fly out to end the inning, the second time he retired Lobaton with multiple runners on base. Lobaton had been 7-for-13 with two homers against Teheran before Friday.
The Braves had several chances to take a lead, but they failed to capitalize until Swisher came through in the eighth. Adonis Garcia came to bat three times in the first five innings with two out and multiple runners on base, and in all three cases he ended the inning. He grounded out with two on in the first inning, flied out with two on the third, and grounded out with bases loaded in the fifth.
That made Garcia 1-for-27 with runners in scoring position, including 0-for-17 with 2 outs. Before Friday, the Braves were last in the National League in batting average with runners in scoring position (.220) since the All-Star break, including 10-for-64 (.156) during the losing streak.
After playing third baseman Hector Olivera in three consecutive games since the heralded Cuban newcomer arrived from Triple-A, Gonzalez rested him Friday and started Garcia. The Braves had said they would be careful not to push Olivera too much in his first couple of weeks in the majors, since he missed about six weeks with a hamstring injury.
Garcia has been a pleasant surprise with seven homers in his first 38 games in the majors, but his defense – seven errors in his past 33 games – and situational hitting have been problematic. Clint Robinson’s routine grounder went between Garcia’s legs to start the fourth inning and Escobar followed with a walk.
Teheran worked out of the jam when right fielder Nick Markakis made a running catch on Desmond’s sinking liner near the right-field line and Teheran induced an an inning-ending 1-6-3 double play grounder from Lobaton. Teheran pumped his first, an uncommon display of emotion from the usually stoic right-hander.
Pierzynski not only tied the score, 1-1, with his two-out infield single in the third inning, he also tied Hall of Famer Bill Dickey for 10th place on the all-time hits list for catchers with 1,969. Next on the list is Johnny Bench, with 2,048 hits.
The Nationals took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the inning on Harper’s two-out home run, a mammoth shot to right-center on a full-count fastball. It was the 32nd homer of the season for Harper, and made him 10-for-22 with three homers in his career against Teheran.
