If the Braves were disoriented after a Hurricane Irene-induced three-day break, the Nationals didn’t help.
Their old bugaboo came back to bite again in a 9-2 loss Tuesday night, and Jair Jurrjens is the newest target. Jurrjens was hit hard by the Nationals for the third time in seven starts since the All-Star break, this time despite taking two weeks to rest his sore knee.
The Nationals got to Jurrjens for six runs in six innings, including five on home runs by Michael Morse, Ryan Zimmerman and Danny Espinosa, to take a 7-6 lead on the Braves in the season series. Laynce Nix got in on the act with a two-run homer off Cristhian Martinez in the seventh inning to fuel the rout.
After winning 14 of 18, the Braves have now lost their past two, straddling that unexpected three-day break.
A seven-day layoff between starts didn’t help Jurrjens, who is still struggling to find consistency and regain his velocity coming off his stint on the disabled list. He has allowed 17 earned runs in 16 innings in three starts against the Nationals, making him 0-2 with a 9.56 ERA this season against them (including a game July 17 when the Braves rallied to win 9-8) and 13-3 with a 2.18 ERA against everybody else.
“I look like I’m throwing [batting practice] against them all the time,” said Jurrjens, who was asked if he might be tipping his pitches to them. “That’s a good question. I wish I had an answer for it.”
What he did know was that his slider was slower and over the plate. Two of the three home runs he allowed came on hanging breaking balls.
“My slider was awful today, slower, a bigger break,” Jurrjens said. “I was leaving it in the middle. I think I was trying to get a feel for it, and I didn’t get it, and things slowed down. I tried to throw it for a strike and left it up.”
He got little help from his offense. For a team already thrown off-kilter by the schedule, staying back on Livan Hernandez’s mid-60s off-speed repertoire wasn’t easy.
The Braves mustered only two runs in seven innings against the crafty veteran. Jason Heyward drove in both runs, on a sacrifice fly in the second inning and an RBI single in the seventh. He had to supply all the power on Hernandez’s 69-mph offering for the sacrifice fly. That was the only run the Braves got out of a bases-loaded, no-out chance in the second inning.
Hernandez improved to 6-2 with a 2.84 ERA in his past 12 starts against the Braves, dating to 2009.
“You have to just try to go up there and react,” said Heyward of facing Hernandez. “Livan has always been able to hit his spots really well and not have to worry about any situation. He doesn’t really feel any pressure. Tonight was one of those nights where he had it going obviously.”
Jurrjens pitched in and around trouble much of his night, thanks in large part to Morse. Morse hit a long home run to left field in the second inning on a 2-0 hanging slider and then drove in another run with a double to left center in the third, compounding a Brian McCann throwing error.
Hernandez, always a good-hitting pitcher, doubled down the third-base line and sauntered into second base to lead off the fifth inning with his 10th hit of the season. Ian Desmond’s single put runners at the corners for Zimmerman, who broke the game open on a 2-2 fastball into the right-center seats to put the Nationals up 5-1.
Jurrjens has lost twice in three starts since returning from the DL, allowing 11 runs in 18 1/3 innings, but he said his knee is not the problem.
“The knee is fine,” said Jurrjens, who is 1-3 with a 5.88 since the All-Star break after going 12-3 with a 1.87 ERA before it. “I just need to clean my mind up and start trusting again, and start working on what I used to do in the first half. ...
“I’m trying to do too much, put too much on myself. I’m not having fun right now. I need to start having fun and hope the ball rolls to my side.”
That’s one reason why manager Fredi Gonzalez sent him back out to pitch the sixth inning.
“Get some work in and get him over the hump,” Gonzalez said. “After the home run [by Zimmerman], I saw some fastballs that had some life to it, down in the strike zone.”
