Braves score winning run on squeeze bunt in ninth

Conrad bunted the second pitch from reliever Jose Mijares, a low-and-in fastball.  The scrappy bench player, whose game-ending grand slam against Cincinnati last month helped win him the majors' Clutch Performer of the Month award, has kept coming through in June.

"He's taking advantage of his opportunities," Braves starting pitcher Derek Lowe said of Conrad. "Couple hours before the game he finds out, ‘you're playing,' and he steps in there like it's not big deal.  Those guys go a long way. I call those guys winning players. They may not at the end of the year statistically look like an All-Star type player, but guys in here respect what he does and he helps us win, in any type of fashion."

Conrad actually didn't find out until about 55 minutes before the first pitch that he'd be starting in place of  third baseman Chipper Jones, a late scratch with recurrin soreness in his right ring finger.

Before he dropped down a perfect squeeze bunt to drive in the winning run, Conrad doubled for a go-ahead RBI in the fifth inning and made two sensational defensive plays.

"He's a dirt player," Cox said. "He always has been, and you pull for guys like that, guys that just beat the bushes, had little cups of coffee here and there."

Cox said he called the squeeze with Conrad because he knew the heady player would get the sign correctly and do his best to get down the bunt.

"Before I went up there Bobby said, "Hey, be ready, we might squeeze,'" Conrad said. "I just figured we might go ahead and do it on the first pitch. But he didn't give it to me, so I went ahead and took a rip at the first one. Probably good that I swung and missed, because it was up in the zone a little bit. I probably would have popped it up if I'd made contact.

"But then I looked down the next time and the squeeze was on. So here we go, I've got to do what I can to get the ball down.... When you make the most of opportunities it feels great."

The normally stout Twins defense cracked open a door of opportunity for the Braves in the eighth inning, and they failed to push it open and go through. But they weren't done.

Blanco drew a one-out walk in the ninth and went to third on Martin Prado's single, setting up the squeeze.

"We end up scoring the winning run on a squeeze, which is National League baseball at its finest," Lowe said after the Brave evened the series at a game apiece and their 11-game road trip record at 5-5 entering Sunday's finale.

"Today definitely was a National League game," said Twins center fielder Denard Span.  "I was running by one of the umpires and I said, ‘That's National League ball right there.' I give them credit. They played their game in our park."

Billy Wagner gave up one hit in the ninth before recording his 11th save.

Lowe was 0-4 with an 8.31 ERA in six career starts against Minnesota before Saturday, when he pitched 7 1/3 strong innings, allowing six hits, two runs and three walks (two intentional) with four strikeouts.

Lowe left with the score 2-2 and two runners on in the eighth, and three pitching changes later, Venters got the biggest out of the game when he struck out Jason Kubel with the bases loaded to keep the score tied.

Peter Moylan had walked Michael Cuddyer on a full-count breaking ball that narrowly missed inside, loading the bases. A sellout crowd was ecstatic.

But in came the kid Venters, and four pitches later the rally was thwarted.

The Braves trailed 1-0 until the fifth inning, when they got two runs on a homer by the suddenly hot-hitting Melky Cabrera and back-to-back two-out doubles by  Prado and Conrad.

Cabrera had tied the score with a one-out homer off Twins starter Nick Blackburn, the second homer for Cabrera in his first season with the Braves. In his past six games, he has 10 hits and four RBIs.

Blackburn was lit up in his past two starts before Saturday, allowing 10 hits and five runs twice in abbreviated road starts against Seattle (3 2/3 innings) and Oakland.

But after allowing 20 hits in 6 1/3 innings of those games, he limited the Braves to six hits and two runs in seven innings.

They didn't advance a runner into scoring position until the fifth, and got only one more past first base against him on a two-out double by Hinske in the sixth.