WASHINGTON – While Atlanta's pleasantly surprising journeyman Aaron Harang got back to pitching as he had for most of the season, the Braves did what they've done to Stephen Strasburg since the Washington ace's ballyhooed arrival in the majors.
They beat him.
The Braves scored first on a home run from B.J. Upton in the fifth inning and blew the game open with five runs in the sixth and seventh innings of a 6-2 win against Washington to avoid being swept at Nationals Park.
Harang (11-10) gave up just six hits and one unearned run in seven innings, with no walks and nine strikeouts. The kind of pitching line that Nationals fans typically expect from Strasburg when he’s facing any team other than the Braves.
Strasburg (11-10) had a good outing compared to some recent ones against the Braves, allowing seven hits and three runs with no walks and eight strikeouts in six innings. But he fell to 0-3 with a 7.17 ERA in four starts against the Braves this season and remained winless (0-4) in nine starts against them over the past two seasons.
The Braves won for only the third time in their past nine games and moved to 2-4 on a nine-game road trip that wraps up with a three-game series against the Rangers. They were one game behind Pittsburgh for the second National League wild-card spot pending the outcome of the Pirates’ game Wednesday night.
Strasburg worked out of a jam in the third inning when he struck out Freddie Freeman and broke Justin Upton’s bat on an inning-ending groundout after the Braves had put two runners in scoring position with one out via a Jason Heyward single and a Phil Gosselin fielder’s choice and fielding error on the play.
After B.J. Upton homered for the second consecutive game against Strasburg for a 1-0 lead in the fifth, the Nationals got a run on two singles and a passed ball by rookie catcher Christian Bethancourt in the fifth. When the Braves started the sixth inning with a Freeman double, Strasburg was in trouble again and Atlanta capitalized.
Justin Upton’s RBI single put them back ahead, 2-1. Upton was thrown out trying to steal second base, which looked like it might be a costly mistake when Tommy La Stella followed with a two-out double. But Bethancourt made amends for the passed ball when he followed La Stella with an RBI single for a 3-1 lead.
The Braves added two runs against left-handed reliever Jerry Blevins in the seventh inning, when Harang and Jason Heyward hit consecutive singles to start the inning. After Phil Gosselin walked, Freeman hit a sacrifice fly and Justin Upton greeted reliever Ryan Mattheus with a two-run double.
The Braves snapped a four-game losing streak at Nationals Park and won for only the third time in their past eight games against Washington, which has a commanding eight-game lead over the Braves in the NL East with only 16 games to play including another three-game series between these teams starting Monday in Atlanta.
The Braves won seven of the first eight games between the teams and have a 10-6 lead in the season series.
Harang improved to 2-0 with a 0.90 ERA in three starts against the Nationals this year and has a 2.13 ERA in nine starts against them over the past six seasons. He’s allowed two earned runs in 20 innings against them this season.
Harang had been 1-4 with a 6.91 ERA and .350 opponents’ average in his past five starts before Wednesday, after going 4-0 with a 2.55 ERA and .270 opponents’ average in his previous nine.
For Strasburg, his career record against the Braves seems inexplicable. He’s 3-7 with a 4.61 ERA in 16 career starts against the Braves, with two of those wins coming in 2012 in his third and fourth starts against them.
Strasburg has a 37-23 record in 90 starts against everyone else, and the only other team that’s handed him more than three losses is Miami. he has a 7-5 record and 3.94 ERA in 17 starts against the Marlins.
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