The Braves said they were going to use Sunday’s win in St. Louis to build a little momentum, and they kept their word.
They worked an unusually wild Wily Peralta for a three-run lead in the first three innings, chased him after five innings, and then finished off the Brewers’ bullpen with a five-run eighth to take the first game of this series 9-3 against the first-place team from the NL Central.
“I thought (Sunday’s) game might be of those turn-you-over (games),” said Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez, who reiterated that in Monday’s scouting meeting before the Braves played the Brewers. “Sometimes you think a win is a win, but the way we won that game, it might be the biggest win we’ve had all year. We’ll see. Hopefully it’ll carry us over for a long time.”
The Braves used Freddie Freeman’s second home in as many games to open up a 3-0 lead, and they broke it open with home runs from Ryan Doumit– the 100th of his career – and Justin Upton in the eighth.
By the time the eighth-inning onslaught was over, the Braves had batted around, so that the pinch-hitting Doumit batted twice in the inning. His second time up, he was facing Brewers infielder Lyle Overbay, a former Brave, who took the mound for the first time in his professional career.
Overbay got Doumit to pop-out to shortstop, which was more than Weu-Chung Wang could say, after allowing five runs including two homers on 40 pitches.
“Kid’s got nasty stuff,” said Doumit, with a twinkle in his eye, talking about Overbay, his 37-year-old former Pirates teammate and fellow native of Washington state. “The kid, he’s got a bright future ahead of him. I’m going to keep my eye on him.”
The Braves piled on a season-high 15 hits, including three each from Andrelton Simmons and leadoff hitter Jason Heyward, who also stole two bases and scored two runs.
The Braves have scored six or more runs in back-to-back games for the first time since they won four in a row with some steady offense against the Nationals and Phillies April 11-14.
“It’s nice to finally show everybody what we’re capable of,” Doumit said. “We have too much firepower in this lineup to be quiet the last week or so. I think we’re seeing signs of guys breaking out. Today was a pretty telling sign, guys using the whole field. I think there’s more of that to come.”
While the Braves could have scored a lot more than three runs off Peralta, wasting multiple scoring opportunities early, they worked him for 101 pitches to chase him after five innings. And after their eighth inning outburst, they didn’t have to sweat going 2-for-10 with runners in scoring position and stranding 10 runners through the first seven innings.
The Brewers had pulled within a run, down 4-3, after Ryan Braun stroked a one-out, two-strike opposite field home run off David Carpenter to the dismay of the booing 20,468 at Turner Field. But he just gave another Ryan some ideas.
Doumit worked a full count from Wang to lead off the eighth and then sent his first home run as a Brave – and fourth as a pinch-hitter and 100th of his career – into the left field seats.
“It’s a pretty cool milestone,” said Doumit, a 10-year veteran with the Pirates, Twins and Braves. “Ninety-nine has been on my mind for a little bit so now it’s cool to get there and tomorrow it’s back to business.”
After Heyward got hit by a pitch and stole second, Upton homered to right for his 11th of the season.
The Braves got their usual solid work from the mound, with Mike Minor allowing only two earned runs in 6 2/3 innings. He gave up two runs on one swing when Kris Davis turned on a 3-1 fastball for a two-run homer in the fifth inning. That cut the Braves’ lead to 3-2, but it was all the Brewers could muster off Minor.
Minor had not allowed a hit until Jonathan Lucroy singled with two outs in the fourth. That broke up a streak of 11 in a row retired by Minor after he walked Carlos Gomez to lead off the game.
Since Minor gave up six runs in a 7-1 loss to the Cardinals, he has allowed only four earned runs in 14 2/3 innings in back-to-back wins over the Giants and Brewers.
“I’ve had one bad game against the Cardinals, and I think that was mostly making bad pitches over the middle of the plate and throwing a lot of fastballs,” said Minor, now 2-2 with a 3.80 ERA. “But the last couple I’ve felt like I mixed it up pretty well, and (Evan) Gattis and I are getting on the right page.”
Freeman homered to the opposite field for the second straight game. This one barely cleared the left field wall, taking the left fielder Davis’ glove with it. But a fan was kind enough to throw Davis’ glove back to him, as Freeman rounded the bases for his ninth home run of the year.
The Braves needed a wild finish to shake their offensive funk Sunday in St. Louis and got a wild start Monday night to keep it going.
Peralta, who walked no more than two batters in any of his first eight starts this season, walked three of the first six Braves batters he faced. Heyward scored the Braves first run on a passed ball and an errant throw to third base by Martin Maldonado. B.J. Upton drew a leadoff walk in the second inning and scored on the first of two RBI hits for Ramiro Pena.
“We know what we’re capable of as an offense,” Justin Upton said. “The key for us is when we get good pitches to hit, and we wait it out. When we don’t get too anxious, I think we’ve proven that that’s when we hit our best. Obviously early on in the season it’s tough to have the patience with ourselves and with the pitchers to put ourselves in a position to get hits, but I think if we can settle in and have good at-bats, we’re capable of putting up runs every single night.”
