The Braves might have missed out on home field advantage for a potential league championship series, but they came up with a fitting way to close out the regular season at Turner Field: A hit fest.
The Braves piled up 17 hits, including the 21st home run of Evan Gattis’ rookie season, to defeat the Phillies 12-5 on Sunday. Elliot Johnson drove in a career-high five runs on two hits, Gerald Laird matched his career-high with four hits and four runs scored while making his second start behind the plate while Brian McCann (groin injury) sat out his third straight game.
The 17 hits matched the Braves’ second highest total of the season, second only to the 18 they recorded against the Phillies on July 6 at Citizens Bank Park.
“Nice to get some good momentum going into the postseason,” Laird said, who raised his average 25 points to .281 in the season’s final game. “It was a good offensive day. Our offense has been kind of struggling here the last couple of weeks. It’s nice to come out and get some good at-bats, guys get in rhythm and here we go.”
The Braves lost out on the NL’s top seed after St. Louis beat the Cubs Sunday afternoon, but they finished with the majors’ best home record at 56-25 and tied their franchise record for home wins in a season which they’d done four times (1996, 1998, 1999, 2010).
The Braves had already secured home field advantage for the division series, which will open Thursday at Turner Field against the Dodgers with Kris Medlen facing Clayton Kershaw.
“I think there’s a lot being made about home-field advantage, but we’re going to count our blessings,” Johnson said. “We still won 96 games. That’s a lot of games to win. We’re going to the playoffs. We’ve got to face the Dodgers at some point, I would assume, anyway. Let’s take Game 1 and move from there.”
A crowd of 42,194 Sunday helped the Braves finish the season with their highest attendance mark (2,548,679) since they drew 2.7 million in 2007. The crowd also got to see the team gather around the pitcher’s mound for photos with the 2013 pennant that will go up on the left field façade next season.
The Braves finished a rocky September at 13-14 but closed on a high note after getting a fast 5-0 start on Philadelphia starter Zach Miner. Erik Kratz tried to spoil it with a three-run homer off Julio Teheran on a two-out, two-strike slider to cut the lead to 5-4 in the fourth, but Jose Constanza hit a two-run single while pinch-hitting for Teheran in the fifth to set him up for his 14th win.
Teheran allowed four runs in five innings and struck out three to finish the season with 170 strikeouts, beating out Brandon Beachy (169) for the franchise record for strikeouts by a rookie since 1900.
“Night and day,” Laird said, describing the difference in Teheran since spring training. “The confidence he has out there, things don’t tend to get out of whack for him. If he gives up a couple of runs, he knows how to settle himself down and continue to pitch deep in ballgames. I’m looking forward to seeing him go out there in the postseason and give us a chance to win.”
Craig Kimbrel tuned up for the postseason with a scoreless ninth to help the Braves bullpen finish the season with a 2.46 ERA, the lowest in the majors since the 2003 Dodgers put up a 2.46 ERA, led by NL Cy Young award winner Eric Gagne.
Freddie Freeman went 2-for-5 Sunday with one RBI to finish the season with a career-high .319 batting average and 109 RBIs, the highest total by a Brave since Andruw Jones drove in 129 runs in 2006.
