MILWAUKEE -- Jason Heyward made things interesting Wednesday night when he crushed a three-run homer in the sixth inning, giving the Braves new life in a game that had seemed out of reach.
His mammoth homer to the right-field seats erased most of a four-run deficit, but the Braves didn't do much with other limited opportunities in a 5-4 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers at Miller Park.
Rookie left-hander Mike Minor was erratic in his injury fill-in start, walking the first three batters on 14 pitches and allowing five runs and seven hits in 4 1/3 innings.
"The defense and hitters came out today; they did their job and I didn’t do mine," said Minor, who was staked to a 1-0 lead in the first and coughed it up in a two-run bottom half of the inning. "I feel like I let the team down.
The Braves fell to 3-3 on a seven-game trip and need to win Thursday to salvage a split of the four-game series and avoid a losing record on the opening trip. Other than Heyward's three-run homer, they've scored three runs in the other 26 innings of the series.
Milwaukee right-hander Marco Estrada recorded his first major league win in his 23rd appearance and third start, allowing four runs and eight hits in six innings. He entered with a 0-1 record and bloated 8.04 career ERA.
"We’ve just got to swing the bats better, one through eight," Braves third baseman Chipper Jones said. "I mean, we’ve got a couple of guys swinging it good here and there. Our hits are so scattered right now, it’s hard to piece anything together. But hopefully the offense will start coming around.”
Prince Fielder had three hits and three RBIs for the Brewers, and scored their final run on a fifth-inning play in which replays showed he was tagged out by catcher Brian McCann. Carlos Gomez also appeared to miss home plate on a first-inning run.
"I thought they were both out, but that’s neither here nor there," Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. “... Our top of the first, we had some stuff going and they kept us to one run there.
"What are you going to do? We had the tie run on base in the ninth inning, with a chance to hit it out of the ballpark.”
"We got a raw call and had a bad inning," Jones said. “Fielder was definitely out; that wasn’t even close. It turned out to be huge....
"We had a bad first inning; there’s no defense for walks. But we got out of it with minimal damage and stayed in the game."
They staked Minor to a 1-0 lead on first-inning doubles by Martin Prado and Jones, but failed to add more. Jones was thrown out by center fielder Carlos Gomez trying to score from second on Brian McCann’s one-out single.
Jones, who had season-ending knee surgery in August, was out easily and went in standing up, rather than risk injury trying to slide through or barrel over catcher Wil Nieves.
“When you’ve got a guy on the ropes," Jones said, not finishing the thought about Estrada. "Me getting thrown out at home plate was a big play in the first inning. We had a chance to get two or three and set the tone for the game. Then they throw me out and we walk the first three batters of the game. So much for momentum.”
The leadoff hit by Prado marked the first time in three games in the series that the Braves put a runner in scoring position. They won 2-1 Monday on a pair of eighth-inning homers by Prado and Dan Uggla, without advancing a runner into scoring position.
Yovani Gallardo threw a two-hit shutout Tuesday against the Braves.
In the first inning Wednesday, it seemed early that the Braves had found a pitcher more to their liking and were ready to take out some pent-up frustrations upon Estrada.
But after allowing those three hits in the first inning and a one-out single in the second, the right-hander retired 11 of the next 12 batters through the fifth inning on the way to his first major league win.
The Brewers built a big lead against Minor, who walked Rickie Weeks, Carlos Gomez and Ryan Braun to start the game. Fielder drove in two runs with a single,still with no outs.
"You get a lead, you’re supposed to come out that very next inning and shove it … put a zero on the board," Minor said. "Obviously I didn’t do that. I came out and walked the house, pretty much.
“I came out there thinking pretty confident and everything. First inning was kind of a .. I just wanted to throw strikes right away, and I felt like I was kind of just babying it –- throw a strike, throw a strike. And it just kept going on and on, ball ball ball ball.
“I guess it kind of scared me a little bit. I felt like I had the yips out there. I couldn’t throw the ball for a strike. I didn't know where to go from there."
Minor was as surprised as anyone by his nervousness, considering he'd made eight major league starts late last season, barely more than a year after taken with the seventh overall selection of the 2009 draft out of Vanderbilt.
“I don’t know about [nerves]," Gonzalez said. "He’s been up here before, pitched in big games in college and all that kind of stuff. But I’m glad he did settle down and give us four innings after that.”
Minor wiggled out of the first inning without further damage with a groundout and a double-play grounder, and induced another double play after a leadoff single in the second.
The Brewers pushed the lead to 3-1 on a two-out double by Yuniesky Betancourt in the fourth inning and chased Minor from the game in the fifth with three singles by the first four batters, including an RBI single by Fielder that made the score 4-1.
Two of the fifth-inning hits off Minor were deflected off the gloves of third baseman Jones and shortstop Alex Gonzalez.
Reliever Cristhian Martinez gave up an RBI single to Mark Kotsay that scored Fielder for a 5-1 lead. McCann and Fredi Gonzalez argued that Fielder was out, to no avail.
That run turned out to be a crucial one.
Jones and McCann had consecutive singles to start the sixth inning against Estrada. One out later, Heyward smashed a 2-0 fastball to the right-field seats, cutting the lead to 5-4 with his second homer.
“I was standing on second base and saw [Estrada] grip the fastball on a 2-0 count, and I said, oh, boy, this is going a long way," Jones said. "And it did.”
The Braves’ previous five homers had come with the bases empty.
The next eight Braves went down in order after the homer, before Heyward snapped that string with a leadoff walk against Brewers closer John Axford in the ninth. The next three batters went down in order, with pinch-hitter Eric Hinske flying out to end the game.
"We gave ourselves a chance in the ninth inning," Heyward said. "That’s all we could do. We had some close plays at the plate tonight; one of them went our way, one of them didn’t, and that’s the way it happened right there.”
