An early lead, an encouraging performance from starter Eric Stults, and three hits (plus a walk) from A.J. Pierzynski weren’t enough Wednesday night for the Braves to stop the speeding train that is the surprising New York Mets.
After Stults pitched six strong innings and left with a 2-1 lead, the Mets hit a tying homer against rookie Cody Martin in the seventh and got a run in the eighth against struggling Jim Johnson to beat the Braves 3-2 at Citi Field, extending their winning streak to 10 games and improving the National League’s best record to 12-3.
Johnson’s had three alarming outings in a row in the first five games of a nine-game trip, and the Braves have lost five of seven since a 6-1 start and must win Thursday to avoid being swept for the first time this season.
“When you run those long streaks — what is it now, nine, 10 in a row? – in the big leagues, you have a lot of breaks, a lot of stuff that has to go right,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said, “and it’s going right for them right now.”
It’s not gone right in New York for the Braves, who’ve totaled three runs in two games while going 1-for-11 with runners in scoring position. And it’s not gone right on the trip for Johnson. After nearly mirror-image outings at Toronto in which he twice gave up three hits, two runs and a homer, he failed to make it through the eighth inning Wednesday.
“Three days in a week isn’t going to define my season,” said Johnson, who was charged with two hits, one run and three walks in two-thirds of an inning. “I know the ups and downs of a year, and it seems like a little luck went their way and it seems like it’s been going their way.”
With the score tied, he walked Curtis Granderson on six pitches to start the eighth, without Granderson swinging once. Johnson got ahead in the count 0-2 before throwing four consecutive balls. Then he gave up Juan Lagares’ single poked through the right side on a hit-and-run play that put runners on the corners.
“We had them a couple of different times on the ropes, and we didn’t get the base hit,” Gonzalez said. “And they get a leadoff walk in the eighth and a little hit-and-run and the ball doesn’t go 70 feet, and they get (runners on) first and third out of it.”
Lucas Duda followed with a sharp, game-tying single to left. After inducing a double-play grounder, Johnson walked the next two batters and was replaced by rookie Brandon Cunniff with the bases loaded. Cunniff bailed him out with a fielder’s choice grounder that prevented any more runs, but enough damage had been done.
“You get yourself in a jam when you walk the leadoff hitter,” Gonzalez said. “You get him 0-2, you feel pretty good. Granderson didn’t swing the bat. So, you get yourself behind the 8-ball there.”
Wilmer Flores hit the tying homer in the seventh off Martin.
“I make one bad pitch tonight, and it really wasn’t that bad of a pitch,” Martin said. “I went and looked at the video, it was a slider away. It wasn’t like it was elevated too much. I think he was maybe looking slider and got the pitch he wanted, took a good swing. He kind of dove out there, hit it to left. At first I didn’t think it was going to carry, but it took off.
“It sucks. You don’t want to blow a close lead like that, especially after Stultsy pitched his butt off.”
Stults came in with a 6.30 ERA in two starts, but the veteran lefty came through with a big performance, limiting the Mets to four hits and one run in six innings, with five strikeouts and no walks.
“Unfortunately we weren’t able to pull it out there tonight,” Stults said. “But I think as a starter you want to go out and give your team a chance to win, and I was able to do that. It just didn’t go our way tonight.”
Stults struggled in his first two starts, allowing 12 hits, seven runs, three walks and three homers in 10 innings. But after lasting five innings in each of those starts, he churned through six innings in 103 pitches (67 strikes) against the surging Mets and left with a 2-1 lead.
“He did a nice job changing speeds,” Gonzalez said. “He did a nice job doing everything he could to keep us in the ballgame.”
Stults retired 12 consecutive batters beginning with a fielder’s choice grounder and strikeout for the last two outs of the second inning, when there were two runners on base in a 1-1 game.
The Braves took a 1-0 lead in the second when Pierzysnki doubled with one out and chugged around from second to score on Andrelton Simmons’ single to center fielder Lagares, with Pierzyski barely ahead of the throw and tag on a safe call that was challenged but upheld after video review.
The Mets answered with a run in the bottom of the inning when Eric Campbell hit a leadoff double and scored on Flores’ single. They had a chance to take the lead after second baseman Jace Peterson dropped a potential double-play grounder – the second time that happened to a Braves second baseman in as many nights – to put two runners on with one out.
Stults got a fielder’s choice grounder from pitcher Dillon Gee for the out at third, and struck out leadoff man John Mayberry Jr. for the third out.
In the first inning, Stults escaped unscathed after Mayberry’s leadoff triple. Lagares struck out and Duda lined out to first baseman Freddie Freeman before a fly out ended the inning.
“The first two innings they had me, you could say, on the ropes,” Stults said. “Leadoff triple, and they don’t end up scoring. Just giving up one run in the second, I felt like I had to find a way to keep us in the ballgame. Because it could have been the other way around, they could have scored three or four runs and the game could have gotten out of hand. But I was able to make some pitches there and was able to get out of it.”
Stults retired all nine batters in the third through fifth innings and didn’t allow another another hit after Flores’ RBI single in the second inning until Duda singled with one out in the sixth.
“We had a pretty good gameplan,” he said. “I think I threw more fastballs tonight, and tried to move the fastball around. Whereas the first two outings, most of the fastballs were on the outer half. Today we tried to mix it back and forth, so I think that was the biggest thing. You’ve got to execute. A.J. did a great job, he had a good feel back there. I didn’t have to shake him much, and that makes it easy as a pitcher.”
Stults did it on a night when the Braves and their fans needed a boost from a back-end starter, after things came apart on Trevor Cahill in the four-run fifth inning of a 7-1 loss in the series opener. Cahill’s solid first four innings of work had been overshadowed by the fifth, and before Wednesday neither Cahill nor Stults had a good start for the Braves.
Stults changed that, even if he didn’t get a win.
