Baseball is not this easy, but don’t tell the Braves. They took a tie game against the Royals in the eighth inning Tuesday night and turned it into batting practice.
Jason Heyward, Justin Upton and Dan Uggla took turns seeing who could hit the ball the farthest in a three-home run barrage off Royals reliever Kelvin Herrera as the Braves ambushed the Royals 6-3 for their 10th win in a row.
And Herrera is no slouch. He came into Tuesday’s game leading the major leagues with a fastball averaging 97.4 mph, according to Fangraphs.
"Somebody said he throws the hardest in Major League Baseball, but we like fastballs," quipped Kris Medlen, who could bow out his chest on behalf of a Braves lineup that made his seven solid innings stand up by putting on a show.
Those three swings in addition to Juan Francisco’s first ever multi-homer game gave the Braves 25 home runs on the season, which leads the majors. The Braves had as many home runs Tuesday night – five - as the Royals have hit all season.
The Braves 10-game winning streak is their longest since they won an Atlanta-record 15 in a row from April 16 to May 2, 2000. The Braves are 12-1 on the season, with the only loss coming when Medlen got outdueled by Cliff Lee of the Phillies 2-0 on April 4.
The Braves didn’t come away unscathed though. The extra cushion in the ninth meant they could turn to Luis Avilan instead of closer Craig Kimbrel. But shortly after Avilan started into his motion with a 2-2 count on Billy Butler, he grabbed the back of his left leg and went to the ground. He had to be helped off the field by manager Fredi Gonzalez and trainer Jim Lovell and was driven off on a cart. Kimbrel came on to finish out the game, working around an RBI single by Alex Gordon, which was the first inherited runner the Braves bullpen had given up all season.
Avilan is one of the Braves primary left-handed set-up men and that much more important to them given that Jonny Venters is out with an elbow injury.
The Braves announced Avilan had suffered a hamstring strain and cramping and said he'd be evaluated again on Wednesday. But it didn't look good.
“The way he fell down, he couldn’t put his foot on the ground, I’m thinking worst-case scenario,” Gonzalez said. “But we’ll see.”
For a while Tuesday night it looked like a former Braves right fielder would make the biggest mark on this game, between Jeff Francoeur's go-ahead RBI single in the fourth and his throw home to cut down Andrelton Simmons to end the seventh. But the Braves current right fielder had something to say about that.
Heyward used the eighth inning to break out of a 2-for-22 slump with his second home run of the season. He’d had some tough luck hitting balls hard and at fielders, but nobody was going to get to the 98 mph fastball he launched into the left field stands.
“Just got to keep putting up good at-bats, keep hitting the ball hard and they’ll fall eventually,” Heyward said.
Two pitches later Upton was going even deeper into the left field stands to give the Braves their first back-to-back home runs of the season. Upton now has eight home runs in 13 games as a Brave. Two hitters later Uggla got into the act with his third home run of the season.
“My little baby homer,” Uggla said with a smile, after watching highlights of the eighth inning derby on a TV across the Braves clubhouse.
“These runs don’t come too often,” Uggla continued. “You’ve got to ride the wave as long as you can ride it. It’s definitely a lot of fun. We’re playing good baseball. We’re coming from behind. We’re battling. We’re still in the process of figuring it out as a collective team. But we’re off to a great start. There’s a great vibe in the clubhouse and we’re going to keep going.”
The Braves hadn’t hit three home runs in an inning since April 17, 2008 against the Marlins, when Chipper Jones, Mark Teixeira and Brian McCann went back-to-back-to-back off Ricky Nolasco. John Smoltz got the win that day.
Medlen didn’t get the win Tuesday. Both he and Jeremy Guthrie took no-decisions after giving up two runs in seven innings (one of which was unearned for Medlen). But the home runs assured the Braves would win for the second time in three Medlen starts this season and 25th time in his past 26 overall.
All Medlen really had to feel bad about was a stray fastball to Chris Getz, who homered off him in the third inning to snap a streak of 954 at-bats since his previous home run in 2009.
But the Braves had four more where that came from. Francisco, who had given the Braves a 1-0 lead with a solo shot in the second inning tied the game 2-2 in the seventh with a blast to straightaway center field.
“It’s nice to have that type of arsenal in your club because it’s a game-changer,” Gonzalez said.
