Braves rally from nine runs down to beat Nats

Washington— The weekend was already supposed to be wild -- with four games in three days against the first-place Nationals -- but then Friday night happened.

The Braves trailed by nine runs through five innings against Stephen Strasburg, but came back to take the lead in the ninth inning. They'd managed only one hit in their first 13 at-bats with runners in scoring position, but watched Chipper Jones make history with a two-run single to become the all-time RBI leader by third basemen.

They rallied for two runs against the Nationals' struggling closer Tyler Clippard, only to watch their closer Craig Kimbrel snap a streak of 20 straight saves by giving up a home run to Danny Espinosa.

And still, the Braves won 11-10 on an RBI bloop single by light-hitting shortstop Paul Janish in the 11th inning, creating the kind of memory they haven't made since a seven-run comeback against Baltimore on June 27, 2004 or the Brooks Conrad walk-off game against the Reds on May 20, 2010.

"I still can't believe it," said Chipper Jones, who passed Hall-of-Famer George Brett with 1,598 RBIs along the way. "I mean 9-0. That's never happened to me since I've been here."

The last time it happened, Jones had just finished his freshman year at Pierson (Fla.) Taylor High School. Ken Oberkfell was playing third base for the Braves, and he drove in Glenn Hubbard with the winning run on a bases-loaded walk for a 13-12 over the Padres on June 7, 1987.

With their efforts in the four-hour, 21-minute rain-soaked game, the Braves pulled within 2-1/2 games of the Nationals and get two more shots at them in a day-night doubleheader on Saturday. They won for only the third time in nine meetings against the Nationals this season.

"I saw a team that knows that this is a big series even though they were down nine runs," Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said when asked about the mood in the dugout. "There was no way we were just going to go down without a fight."

Brian McCann hit a two-run homer in the sixth to start a four-run inning. The Braves scored four more in the eighth, highlighted by Jones' two-run single to break his tie with Brett for career RBIs by players whose primary position was third base.

Then a walk and a hit batsman by Clippard set Michael Bourn up for a two-run triple in the ninth to give the Braves a 10-9 lead.

"Once we started chipping away, everybody was of that mindset, hey let's go out and have fun," Jones said. "'We're getting our butts kicked right now. Let's catch them in hits and see what happens.' The guys on the bench stayed upbeat all night and once they started giving us a crack here and there to be able to chip away, you could slowly feel the momentum building on our side."

That lasted right up until Kimbrel, who was tied for the major league lead with 28 saves, blew his first save since May 2 against the Phillies, on only his second home run allowed all season.

But the Braves had one last comeback in them still.

Janish, who'd been 2-for-17 in his first five games with the Braves, drove home Dan Uggla from third base with a bloop just out of reach of drawn-in shortstop Ian Desmond for his first RBI as a Brave.

"I was telling (first base coach) Terry (Pendleton) when I got on base, 'Really crazy game,' " said Janish, who was playing shortstop for the Reds the day Conrad hit his walkoff grand slam in 2010. "But it counts, right? All that matters is we end up with one more than them."

Uggla, had his first multi-hit game in almost two months, since going 4-for-5 in Miami on June 5. He went 3-for-4 with two walks and scored four runs including the game-winner, after reaching on an infield hit, taking second on the wild throw he drew from third baseman Ryan Zimmerman, and advancing to third on a passed ball.

Fittingly, he made a diving play at second to finish the game too.