The Braves returned home from a disappointing road trip with a strong start from left-hander Eric Stults and perhaps some renewed animosity for the Nationals, their rivals in the NL East.
The Braves rode Stults and 13 hits to an 8-4 victory at Turner Field on Monday. Stults held the Nationals to one run and three hits over 6 1/3 innings and outfielder Kelly Johnson had three RBIs, including a two-run homer.
All of that was nearly overshadowed by an apparent retaliation pitch thrown at Braves shortstop Andrelton Simmons by Nationals relief pitcher Rafael Martin in the seventh inning. The Nationals took exception when Simmons knocked third baseman Yunel Escobar out of the game with a hard slide in the fifth.
On the play, Simmons advanced from first to third on a throwing error by Nationals starter Doug Fister on a pick-off attempt. Simmons slid late into the bag and knocked the glove off Escobar’s hand.
“I was just going hard and try to go right for the bag,” Simmons said. “It’s bad that somebody got hurt, hopefully it’s not that bad, but I was just trying to play hard.”
Simmons said that because of how the Nationals reacted to the play, he expected to be thrown at when he went up to bat in the seventh inning. So he wasn’t surprised when Martin clipped him with a pitch thrown behind him.
“It didn’t bother me that much,” Simmons said.
Simmons took his base without incident, though teammate Jonny Gomes was ejected for running out of the dugout in protest. Home plate umpire Bill Welke warned both benches and there were no more incidents in the game.
“I’m just glad things didn’t get out of hand and we kept playing baseball and we ended up winning the game,” Simmons said.
Braves manager Fred Gonzalez defended Simmons on the play at third, saying the slide was late but not dirty.
“We all know and have seen him play and sometimes he can slide a little crazy,” Gonzalez said. “There was nothing malicious about it. I’m surprised, really, with how they reacted. But maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.”
The more important development for the Braves was that Stults (1-1) had his best start of the season. The Braves signed him as a candidate to be the fifth starter and he ended up in the No. 4 slot once Mike Minor went on the disabled list.
The Nationals managed to get just six base runners against Stults before he gave way to Cody Martin in the seventh inning. It was the second straight start Stults pitched at least six innings while allowing just one run.
“The last two outings I’ve been able to get close to that 100-pitch range,” Stults said. “That’s your goal as a starter is to go as deep as you can and keep your team in the game. Tonight offensively we did a good job (against) a pretty good pitcher on the other side. We kind of beat him up a little bit. That made it a little bit easier on my side. I could go out and throw strikes and try to be as efficient as I could.”
The Braves backed up Stults with the 13 hits plus three sacrifice flies and a successful squeeze bunt. Catcher A.J. Pierzynski drove in two runs with fly-ball outs while also extending his hitting streak to 10 games.
The Braves took a 2-1 lead in the fourth inning on Jace Peterson’s sacrifice fly then added three runs in the sixth against starter Doug Fister (1-1). Johnson’s homer and Eric Young Jr’s bunt RBI gave the Braves a 5-1 lead.
Pierzynski’s second sacrifice fly and Johnson’s RBI single pushed the lead to 7-1 in the seventh inning. The Nationals cut the lead to 7-4 in the eighth when former Braves second baseman Dan Uggla knocked in a run with a triple and scored on Peterson’s throwing error. Chris Johnson added an RBI single for the Braves in the eighth and the bullpen secured the victory.
Third-base umpire John Hirschbeck ejected Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman at the end of the fifth inning. Freeman was upset after he was called out on strikes.
Freeman said he complained about the call but didn’t believe he said or did anything to warrant an ejection. He said Hirschbeck cursed at him and then tossed him when Freeman waved his hand at him.
“It’s just something I’ve never been a part of,” Freeman said. “I didn’t say ‘you’re bad.’ I didn’t personalize anything. I just said ‘that’s bad’ a few times. I don’t think I’ve ever heard an umpire say something to a player like that before but it happened tonight and I got kicked out.”
The Nationals committed four errors, with two charged to Fister on botched pick-off attempts. Second baseman Peterson had two throwing errors for the Braves.
“We feel good about ourselves because we won the game but we made a couple sloppy errors that cost us some runs,” Gonzalez said. “They made four errors we took advantage of. I’m glad we won the game but we need to clean that up. If we want to continue to be successful we have to do the little things right.”
