After using a four-run rally in the ninth inning to force extra innings in a loss to the Angels Saturday night, staring up at them from three runs down after five innings on Sunday didn’t seem so daunting for the Braves.
They simply strung together five straight hits in the sixth inning, punctuated by a bases-loaded two-run double by Tommy La Stella. The 16th game of the young second baseman’s major league career was pretty sweet, as he introduced himself to an ESPN audience with his first game-winning hit in a 7-3 win.
“I think La Stella thinks there’s another league, the way he carries himself,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said of both the rookie’s production and demeanor. “So it didn’t surprise me he feels this comfortable right away.”
Jason Heyward helped supply some breathing room with a majestic solo home run in the seventh, which only served to complete his day. Heyward used a pair of highlight catches in right field to keep Mike Trout in check and then helped nab Josh Hamilton at second base with a laser of a throw from right field.
La Stella has now hit safely in 13 of his 16 major league games, and Sunday night was his ninth of the multi-hit variety. He went 3-for-3 with a walk for the first three-hit game of his career.
One of those will stand out in his mind though - the line drive to right center off a Kevin Jepsen 95 mph fastball with the bases loaded, good for the second double of his career.
“It was pretty awesome,” La Stella said. “It was one of the cooler things that I’ve been blessed to be a part of. Obviously the debut was also very special for me and my family as well.”
The hit plated two runs before Chris Johnson was thrown out at home, but the Braves came back to score insurance runs in both the seventh (two) and eighth (one).
Anthony Varvaro and Jordan Walden combined to retire nine in a row before David Carpenter ran into a snag in the ninth, giving up and single and hitting Albert Pujols with a pitch. That forced Gonzalez to call on Craig Kimbrel with a 7-3 lead. Kimbrel struck out Hamilton and Howie Kendrick for his 20th save.
B.J. Upton started the sixth inning rally with a one-out walk. Freddie Freeman fueled it with his second hit of the game, good for his first multi-hit game in a week. Evan Gattis then worked a single to right to extend his National League-leading hitting streak to 15 games and drive in the Braves’ first run. Gattis’ 15-game hitting streak is the most by a Braves catcher since Joe Torre’s 15-gamer in 1967.
Justin Upton drove in another with an infield hit off David Freese’s glove at third base, for the third of the Braves’ five straight hits.
“I think that’s some kind of record, isn’t it?” joked Gonzalez, referring to an offense that has seen its share of struggles this season. “When you are a major league hitter—we hadn’t seen (Hector) Santiago at all (before)—all of a sudden second time through the lineup, third time, fourth time, I think we had a better read on him and started seeing better at-bats.”
Mike Minor, meanwhile, was peppered with 11 hits through five innings and left trailing 3-0 after throwing 103 pitches. The 11 hits matched his career high, which Minor has done three times already this season, including his previous start in Colorado.
It wasn’t the volume of hits that mattered though, it was the depth. Trout and Erick Aybar both took him deep, before Pujols, Hamilton and Howie Kendrick tacked on another run with three straight singles in the third.
Aybar connected first on a 2-0 fastball to lead off the second inning. Then Trout got in on the act to lead off the third sending a 1-1 slider into the left field seats.
“I felt like I was battling all night,” Minor said. “And when I gave in, it was a home run. It’s like one of those games with the Cardinals, when I gave in to Peter Bourjos - home run. You feel like ‘Hey, this guy is in the bottom of the lineup, 2-0, I’m just going to give him a fastball, just to see if he can either take it, roll over, pop it up, give me an easy out somewhere,’ and I just laid it in there for (Aybar). You can’t really relax on any of these guys.”
Minor said the slider he threw to Trout probably would have been a good pitch to any other hitter, but the scouting report on Trout is he’s a great low ball hitter.
“The one to Trout was the worst pitch of the night just because we know that he hits breaking balls in the zone,” Minor said. “Sliders from lefties and righties, he hammers them. (I was trying to throw it) for a chase pitch. It was too much in the zone. When we called it, in my head, it was ‘Hey I’m going to nail this pitch. I’m going to throw it back foot.’ It was just up enough (that) to him, it was a great pitch for him to hit.”
Heyward was the Braves’ best defense against Trout. He robbed Trout in the fourth inning on a diving catch in shallow right field and then again in the sixth with a leaping catch at the right field wall. He also made a strong throw from right field which Andrelton Simmons cut off and used to cut down Hamilton at second base to help limit the damage in the third inning.
If not for those two plays, Trout is 5-for-5 in the game. As it was, he went 3-for-5 to make him 7-for-14 with a double, two home runs and five RBIs in the series.
“If Jason doesn’t make two plays, we may lose the game because all of a sudden (Trout) goes double off the wall, and then the diving play coming in,” Gonzalez said. “We did a lot of good things today offensively and also defensively.”
