So much for a change of scenery and somebody not named the Mets to contend with to help break up the Braves doldrums at the plate. The Braves just took their offensive woes back on the road, and the Brewers exacerbated them.
Wily Peralta – he of the 4-8 record with a 6.08 ERA coming in - shut out the Braves for seven innings on the way to a 2-0 victory. The Braves drew six walks but managed only two hits, only one of which left the infield, and went 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position.
The shutout loss was the Braves’ 10th of the season, which leads the majors.
“You play long enough you’re going to hit stretches like this,” said B.J. Upton who singled to right field for one of the two hits and also got thrown out at the plate trying to score on a safety squeeze. “Just got to find a way. We’re a good enough ball club, we’ll be fine.”
The Braves lost for the fourth time in the past five games and the eighth time in 12 games. Peralta got the better of Julio Teheran, despite some of the most impressive damage control by a Braves pitcher this season.
Teheran escaped two bases loaded jams in the first three innings, allowing only one run, and a Jean Segura home run was his only other blemish. But the two runs in 6 1/3 innings were enough to saddle him with his third loss in five starts.
The Braves were coming off a five-game series against the Mets at Turner Field in which they hit only .190 (8-for-42) with runners in scoring position and stranded 41 runners on base. They couldn’t get much going against Peralta Friday night either, and when they did, they spoiled it.
The Braves had runners thrown out at third base and home, both on bunt attempts by Teheran, to thwart scoring opportunities in the third and fifth inning. Dan Uggla was thrown out at third base on a sacrifice bunt attempt by Teheran in the third inning to help Peralta off the hook for two walks to start the inning.
Then Upton was thrown out at home by Peralta on a safety squeeze attempt by Teheran.
“We had the right guy at third base who could read it and with his speed, just didn’t quite get it far enough down the first baseline,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. “Who knows, you make that play there and that may open up a big inning?”
The Braves were only down 1-0 at that point, but it felt like more because the Brewers had stranding six runners over the first four innings. The Braves, meanwhile, didn’t get their first hit off Peralta until Upton stroked a single to right to lead off the fifth inning.
Friday marked the third time in nine games the Braves entertained a little no-hit notion for an opponent, after the Mets’ Matt Harvey took a no-hitter into the seventh on Tuesday, and the Giant’s Madison Bumgarner took a no-hitter into the sixth on June 14.
Even though the Brewers outhit the Braves 8-2 – including three hits apiece from Norichika Aoki and Segura – they weren’t exactly tearing it up with runners in the scoring position either.
With the bases loaded and nobody out in the first inning, Teheran gave up an Aramis Ramirez sacrifice fly but then picked Carlos Gomez off first base. Teheran battled former teammate Juan Francisco for 10 pitches before getting him to pop up on the infield.
He stranded three more runners on a groundout in the third inning and limited the Brewers to 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position overall.
“For facing a lot of those guys for the first time, I thought he did an amazing job,” catcher Brian McCann said of his batterymate. “He kept them off-balance, worked both sides of the plate, elevated when he needed to. You couldn’t ask for any more than what he did tonight.”
