WASHINGTON – The Braves had waited a long time to celebrate a series win at Nationals Park, so long that most of their current roster wasn’t even on the team the last time it happened.
But Julio Teheran was around then, and he got some long-overdue team and personal satisfaction Wednesday in the Braves’ 13-2 rout against the Nationals, snapping his own eight-start winless streak against Washington while helping the Braves clinch their first series win at Nationals Park since April 2014.
Brandon Phillips had a season-high four hits and Ender Inciarte and Nick Markakis had three hits apiece as the top three in the Braves’ batting order went 10-for-16 with seven runs and six RBIs. Kurt Suzuki added a two-run homer as the Braves beat up on Nationals starter Tanner Roark (6-4).
“I wish we could do that all the time,” Phillips said after the Braves outscored the Nationals 29-22 in the series to take two of three games and improve to 4-2 against the National League East leaders this season. “We were just trying to do our job for the guys behind us, and they did a good job driving us in.”
The always colorful Phillips said of Teheran, “Julio was looking like Julio. It’s nice to see him keep the ball down and hit his spots. Not up there just throwing the ball, he was pitching today and it was fun to play behind him. Even though I made that error, other than that he looked gorgeous out there today.”
Teheran was 0-3 with a 6.11 ERA in his past eight starts against the Nationals before Wednesday, when he pitched seven strong innings to remain unbeaten on the road this season. He was staked to a 3-0 lead in the first inning, gave up a two-run homer to Brian Goodwin in the second inning, then put the hammer down on the Nats through the seventh.
“We played good games against them the past two days, and today I just wanted to do my part,” said Teheran (6-4), who did that by limiting the Nationals to six hits, two runs and one walk with three strikeouts in seven innings. “I’ve been working and focusing on, even if I give up a homer just to stay focused and execute pitches. I was getting ahead in counts, throwing strike ones, and it was really big today.”
Teheran improved to a 5-0 with a 2.89 ERA in seven road starts this season, compared to 1-4 with a 7.25 ERA in seven home starts. Before allowing seven runs, 11 hits and two homers in five innings of his last road start June 4 at Cincinnati, he had a 1.42 ERA and .599 opponents’ OPS in five road starts.
“He kept the ball down, out of the middle of the plate, kind of looked like Julio,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “Real aggressive, working fast. He was really good today. Shows you what he’s capable of.”
The Braves have won both series against the Nationals this season, but beating the Nationals in Atlanta hasn’t been the issue in recent years. It’s on the banks of the Anacostia River where the Braves have struggled mightily, averaging less than 2.9 runs per game while going 2-23 in their past 25 games at Nationals Park before this series.
Making their scoring outburst in Washington the past three days all the more surprising was the fact that the Braves had totaled just three runs in losing three games Saturday and Sunday against the Mets.
Not to mention their opponents in the first and last games of the series: Stephen Strasburg in the opener (they got six runs against him in five innings) and Roark, who came in with a 5-1 record and 1.95 ERA in 15 career games (10 starts) versus the Braves, including 4-0 with a 0.76 ERA in eight home games (five starts).
On Wednesday, he gave up three runs before recording the second out of the game, as the Braves opened the first inning with an Inciarte single, Phillips RBI double and Markakis RBI single. One out later, Matt Adams added an RBI single.
Roark (6-4) lasted five innings and was charged with nine hits, seven runs and two walks.
“We just had good at-bats,” Markakis said. “We were waiting for our pitch and when we got it, we didn’t miss.”
Said Phillips: “We just put ourselves in good hitting counts and just took advantage of mistakes, that was basically it.”
At Nationals Park, Teheran had gone 0-2 with a 5.76 ERA in his past four starts before Wednesday, his winless streak coinciding with the Braves’ 2-25 stretch at the ballpark. He gave up six runs and two homers twice in those four starts.
But Wednesday, he was in a different mode.
“I know he hasn’t been throwing the ball the way he wants to this year, but lately he seems to be back to being himself,” Markakis said. “He’s pounding the zone, working quick and using all his pitches.”
The Braves had scored more than five runs only four times and never scored more than eight during their 2-23 malaise at Nationals Park before this week. They had not scored more than 15 runs in any series at Nationals Park during that span and had totaled just seven and nine runs while getting swept in four-game series in 2015 and 2016.
They split a four-game June series at Washington in June 2014, but beginning with losses in the last two games of that series the Braves were 2-23 with a 5.84 ERA at Nationals Park prior to this series, getting out-hit .300-.226, out-homered 31-9 and outscored 145-72. Complete domination.
But that run ended this week, or at least was interrupted by the Braves, who won a three-game series despite allowing a .392 batting average, six homers and 20 runs in the first two games. They won 11-10 in the series opener and lost 10-5 on Tuesday before roughing up Roark.
“Against any team it’s big, but especially against teams in our division, guys that we’re chasing,” Markakis said of the series win. “We need to consistently do that. I thought we had a good series. We’ve been playing good baseball lately. Some long games, but we’re keeping our composure and playing good defense, too.”
The only negative for the Braves was seeing cleanup hitter Matt Kemp leave Wednesday's game with a leg injury in the third inning, but the team characterized it as relatively minor left-hamstring tightness. Kemp said he left as a precautionary measure after having a stint on the disabled list in April for a right-hamstring strain.
