After recently sending lefty Eric Stults to the bullpen because he was ineffective as a starter, the Braves ended up needing one more good spot start from him.
They didn’t get it. The Brewers roughed up Stults and eased to an 11-o victory on Friday at Turner Field.
After the Braves routed the Brewers 10-1 in the series opener, the visitors returned the favor. The Brewers ran out to a 2-0 lead on Ryan Braun’s home run in the first inning and then blew the game open with two outs in the fourth by scoring seven runs, five of them charged to Stults.
The Braves pressed Stults into duty because scheduled starter Alex Wood was scratched because of a stomach virus. Manager Fredi Gonzalez didn’t get word that Wood was unavailable until late Friday morning.
Lucky for the Braves, they had Stults in the bullpen and he hadn’t pitched since starting against the Reds on May 13. Unfortunately for the Braves, Stults had the same issues against the Brewers as he did in most of his other starts.
Stults (1-5) lost his fourth decision in a row while recording an 8.72 ERA in those games. The Braves had replaced him in the starting rotation with Williams Perez, who made his first big-league start on Wednesday.
Stults hurt his cause against the Brewers by walking five batters (one intentional) and allowing the home run and two doubles.
“I felt good physically but it’s just one of those things where I wasn’t able to pick my team up today,” Stults said. “It’s unfortunate Alex was sick but that’s just the way it goes and you’ve got to be ready. I felt like I was ready coming into the start but it just didn’t go the way I wanted it to.”
The Braves had just three hits, all singles. They had four base runners in four innings against starter Wily Peralta, two by way of walk and one a hit batsman, before he left the game because of tightness in his left side.
Three Brewers relievers held the Braves to two hits over the final five innings.
“They did a pretty good job pitching and they controlled our bats tonight,” Braves catcher Christian Bethancourt said. “You’ve got to tip your hat to that.”
Stults walked the first batter he faced, Carlos Gomez, and Braun hit his 11th home run of the season for the 2-0 lead. Stults settled down over the next two innings but another lead-off walk, this time to Braun, got him into trouble in the fourth.
Hector Gomez knocked a two-out double that moved Braun to third and Stults intentionally walked catcher Martin Maldonado to get to pitcher Peralta. Maldonado isn’t a good hitter but it seemed a safe move to walk him because Peralta had no hits and eight strikeouts in 13 at-bats this season.
But Stults fell behind 3-0 in the count to Peralta before walking him to bring home a run. The Brewers kept coming until they had batted around.
Braves shortstop Andrelton Simmons couldn’t corral Luis Sardinas’ ground ball deep in the hole and the infield hit scored a run. That prompted Gonzalez to replace Stults with Trevor Cahill, another starter-turned-reliever.
“I felt like that inning got away from me,” Stults said. “It was an inning where I could have limited the damage. I wasn’t able to do it the next few pitches and unfortunately it was one of those nights. I didn’t get hit hard but the walks came back to bite me.”
Stults had his shortest outing since he lasted 2 1/3 innings while pitching for the Padres against the Nationals on June 8.
“We weren’t thinking, ‘Go out and give us seven, eight (innings), complete game, two-hit shutout,’” Gonzalez said. “It was an emergency, spot starter. After the third inning, you go, ‘OK, he is going to be able to give us five innings.’ And I think he would have if we don’t walk the pitcher there in that situation.”
Cahill could do no better than Stults. Gomez singled and Khris Davis and Braun hit back-to-back doubles to add five more runs before Cahill finally ended the inning by striking out Aramis Ramirez.
The Braves walked batters in the fifth and seventh innings to help the Brewers add on two more runs.
“Those are the things that frustrate you, me as a catcher and them as a pitcher,” Bethancourt said. “You don’t like to be walking that many guys. We are humans. They are not perfect and I completely understand that. We’ve got to get back on track tomorrow and get the win and do things better.”
The one positive for the Braves is that they finished the game using only one of their top relief pitchers, Jim Johnson.
“One thing you hate in those games is to bring in a position player to finish the game,” Gonzalez said. “That’s no fun. J.J. did a good job going out there in the ninth inning and making it fairly quick. Same thing with Nick (Masset). I think we should be in good shape.”
