Braves survive Marlins slugger Stanton

“Honestly, I talked about it with our bench coach (Carlos Tosca): ‘Hey, with this situation what do you think?’” Gonzalez said. “It’s just so hard to bring the winning run to the plate. As much as you want to and as much as the numbers tell you, it’s hard.”

Gonzalez decided to let Grilli pitch to Stanton, who popped out to center field on Grilli’s first pitch to end the game.

Stanton had already hit a solo home run off Braves starter Alex Wood in the first inning on a shot about 450 feet to center. It was Stanton’s third homer in the two games of the series and his 11th homer and 36th RBI of the season.

Ozuna entered the game hitting .281 with three home runs and eight doubles.

“Ozuna, he ain’t chop liver,” Gonzalez said. “He can run one out of the ballpark or split the gap and you lose the game. But we did talk about (walking Stanton).”

Stanton also just missed sending the ball over the left-field wall against Wood in the first inning. He made a run at another homer with a drive to center field off Wood in the seventh but Cameron Maybin backpedaled to make a catch against the wall to end the inning.

That was at least the second fly ball of the series by Stanton that probably would be a home run to straightway center at most parks. Not so at Marlins Park because of a tall wall in center that’s 418 feet away from the plate.