PHOENIX -- It was a night when Braves baserunners made second and third outs at third base in the same inning. When Arizona scored a run from second base on a wild pitch. When Braves closer Craig Kimbrel deflected a potential inning-ending double-play grounder in the 11th, turning it into an inning-extending hit.
It was a night when Atlanta blew the lead in the seventh and again in the 11th, and the Diamondbacks won 5-4 at Chase Field to snap the Braves’ four-game winning streak.
It was a weird night. An odd game.
“It’s always odd when we play here,” Braves third baseman Chipper Jones said. “We had [Nate] McLouth and [Jason] Heyward run into each other for an inside-the-park homer last year, loses us the game. The two-base wild pitch to tie this game. Just weird stuff.
“This is kind of like our Yankee Stadium. It’s a house of horrors.”
The Diamondbacks won on Justin Upton’s infield infield single, the fourth consecutive one-out single off Kimbrel (1-2), who got the loss and his fourth blown save in 15 chances. He hit a high chopper that second baseman Dan Uggla muffed while trying to field quickly to have a chance at a play at home.
Kelly Johnson tied the score with a hit to right field against his former team, immediately after Kimbrel tried to field Ryan Roberts’ grounder and deflected it behind Uggla, who was going to his right and had to change directions to get to the ball. Uggla could manage an off-balance throw to first base.
“I went and looked at it [on video afterward],” Kimbrel said. “If I let that ball go it’s a possible double-play, and I didn’t. I tried to make a play and it hit off my glove.”
Julio Teheran’s second major league start became merely a footnote. The Braves’ 20-year-old pitching phenom was gone after four innings, trailing 2-0. He gave up six hits including an Upton homer in the first inning.
The Braves began a three-city, seven-game trip by losing the first of a two-game set against a team that’s lousy on the road but 12-10 at home. They could have moved past Florida into second place in the National League East with a win, but remained a half-game behind the Marlins and fell to 2-1/2 behind Philadelphia.
“[Kimbrel] is trying to make a play there on the ball up the middle,” manager Fredi Gonzalez said after his Braves’ second consecutive 11-inning game and fourth in eight days. “If not, it’s a double-play ball. But you can’t fault him for that. They went out and got four consecutive hits, got the winning run."
After running themselves out of, or otherwise wasting, several scoring opportunities, the Braves broke through with two runs in the seventh to take a 3-2 lead. Brooks Conrad’s pinch-hit double drove in the tying run and Martin Prado’s sacrifice fly gave them the lead.
It didn’t last long. Gonzalez went to recent bullpen addition Scott Proctor in the seventh, and walked Ryan Roberts to start the inning. After a sacrifice bunt, Roberts scored the tying run in improbable fashion, racing home from second base on a wild pitch.
Catcher Brian McCann lost track of the ball when it shot past him, and Proctor scrambled to retrieve it in front of the Arizona dugout as Roberts barreled around third. Proctor slipped as he tried to throw to McCann.
“[McCann] didn’t know where it was,” Gonzalez said, “and it was nice baserunning by the kid to score all the way from second.”
Asked why reliever Eric O’Flaherty didn’t start the seventh, Gonzalez said, “When you’re on the road, you’ve got to push guys back a little bit, because you can’t use your closer on the road in the ninth inning of a tie ballgame.” (When Proctor began the seventh, the Braves actually led 3-2.)
Teheran was charged with two runs, six hits and two walks with one strikeout. The slender 20-year-old showed flashes of immense potential, but made a few costly mistakes. He threw 48 strikes in 83 pitches and was expected to be optioned back to Triple-A Gwinnett on Thursday, the plan regardless of performance.
The Braves won’t need a fifth starter until May 31, and were expected to use the roster spot for another reliever until then.
“This kid’s going to be alright,” Gonzalez said. “I like that he went back [to Triple-A] and worked on the stuff that we asked him to do, and he’s getting better.”
Teheran labored through a 27-pitch first inning that included a two-out homer by Upton on a full-count changeup, followed by an eight-pitch walk to Stephen Drew.
In his debut on May 7 at Philadelphia, he allowed four hits, three runs and two walks with one strikeout in 4-2/3 innings and took the loss. He got no decision Wednesday.
Gonzalez said he wasn’t on a strict pitch limit, despite the decision to replace him after four innings.
“No, but a 20-year-old -- we were talking about how 85 pitches in the big leagues is like 110 in the minor leagues, because they’re a little different intensity-wise,” Gonzalez said. “And he had a couple of innings where there were some people on base. So we thought, that’s good enough.”
Using a mix of 95-mph fastballs, 81-82 mph changeups and curveballs, Teheran looked more comfortable than he did in his first spot-start. But he didn’t get a few calls on close pitches, and he left a few other pitches over the middle of the plate that were hit hard.
“I wasn’t nervous at all like the first day in Philadelphia,” he said, with bullpen coach Eddie Perez translating. “There were too many people in there [at Philly’s sold-out ballpark].”
Of the pitch Upton drove to the left-field seats, Teheran said: “It was the right pitch, but not the right place to throw it.”
The Diamondbacks got a run on three singles in the fourth to push the lead to 2-0. Teheran was again hurt with two outs on back-to-back singles by pitcher Joe Saunders and Roberts.
Saunders came in with an 0-5 record in eight starts, and was 2-12 with a 5.11 ERA in 19 starts since early August. When a national writer mentioned to Gonzalez before the game that his Braves wouldn’t have any trouble scoring runs against Saunders, Gonzalez said he was the sort of pitcher who tended to give them trouble.
He was right. Young and/or unaccomplished pitchers cause the Braves more problems sometimes than aces. Saunders allowed one run on six hits in seven innings.
The Braves had runners at first and second with one out in the first inning after singles by Martin Prado and Jones, but failed to score when McCann flied out and Dan Uggla grounded out, both on first pitches.
They squandered another prime opportunity in the fifth after an Alex Gonzalez single and Nate McLouth walk to start the inning. Teheran bunted into a force at third base and Prado grounded into an inning-ending double play.
The Braves’ first two runners reach base again in the sixth on a Jason Heyward single and Jones double. This time, they got a run when McCann lined a sacrifice fly that nearly got over the head of left fielder Gerardo Parra. Jones was thrown out at third base on the play for the second out.
After an Uggla walk, Freddie Freeman singled to left and once again, Parra nailed a Brave testing his arm. Uggla was out trying to go from first to third on the play. Inning over.
“If the first throw wasn’t good enough,” Jones said, “from the 376 [feet] sign, the second one -- bare-handed, running in, strike to third – was even better. We try to be aggressive on the bases, and he got the best of us there. [Parra] has got to make two perfect throws to get us right there. And he did. Two great plays by a guy with a cannon.”
Gonzalez said he liked the aggressivness, despite the outs at third base.
“That’s the stuff that we want them to do,” he said. “On Chipper, that kid made a helluva play, going back on the warning track and making the throw the third base. Same thing on Danny’s ball [when Uggla was thrown out].”
The Braves were thrown out again in the 11th inning after Jones drew a leadoff walk and was replaced by pinch-runner Joe Mather. On a one-out infield hit by Uggla, Mather couldn’t tell if the ball had gotten through the infield; it had not. Second baseman Kelly Johnson stopped it, and threw to second base to catch Mather in a rundown after he’d gone too far past the base on the play.
Uggla alertly went to second on the play as Mather was caught in a rundown between second and third. Diory Hernandez then drove him in with a pinch-hit single that put the Braves ahead 5-4.
But Kimbrel couldn’t hold the lead and the Braves had their fifth loss in eight extra-innings games this season.
“You know, we let one slip away,” Jones said. “We got a little unlucky there in the last inning. Pretty much had a tailor-made ground ball to second base for a double play, and Kimby deflected it. If that balls gets by him, I like our chances to turn a double play and end the game.”
