The Braves went into the All-Star break with no questions whatsoever about the readiness of slugger Freddie Freeman following his fractured wrist and rapid return from the disabled list. Nor do they have concerns about versatile Johan Camargo and what the impressive rookie can provide in the second half.
But they can’t be quite as comfortable predicting what the second half holds for Sean Newcomb, the rookie who dazzled in his first four starts but looked more like what was anticipated – a power-armed prospect with command issues – in his past two starts including Sunday’s series finale against the Nationals.
Newcomb walked the first two batters in the first and fourth innings pitched Sunday, and three of those runners ended up scoring for the Nationals, who took a 3-0 lead in the first inning and, after Freeman’s game-tying homer, reclaimed the lead for good in the fourth inning of Washington’s 10-5 win at Nationals Park.
“There’s definitely some times in games where I’m getting those (close) calls, but if I start the first like that normally I’m not going to be able to get those calls,” said Newcomb, who was charged with four hits, four runs and four walks with seven strikeouts in four innings, and indeed didn’t get some borderline pitches after not establishing early that he could throw strikes. “So just chalk it up to the (beginning) of my start and then it kind of lingered a little bit.”
The Braves split the four-game series and have a 4-3 record at Nationals Park, where they lost 23 of the previous 25 games before 2017. They are 42-45 overall and 6-7 against Washington, trailing the National League East leaders by 9 ½ games entering the four-day All-Star break.
“Lot of good things happening,” said manager Brian Snitker. “It was a good half. I think our record could have been better. We shot ourselves in the foot a few games to where I think very realistically we could have been over .500 for this half.
“But the resiliency the guys show, they never quit, and we brought some young guys up that are making some significant contributions, and all in all it’s…like I said we would have liked to have took the series today, but all in all it’s a very positive half.”
In their past eight series, the Braves have won five, lost two and split one.
Camargo is front and center among the young guys making big contributions. He was 3-for-3 with a single, double, home run and walk in four plate appearances Sunday, and he’s hit .371 (26-for-70) in his past 21 games. He started at second base Sunday after starting two of the previous four games at shortstop and another at third base in that stretch.
“Yeah, he’s done a great job,” Snitker said. “That’s kind of what it’s all about – come up, do good, got to find (playing) time for him now.”
Newcomb (1-4) has a 13.50 ERA in his past two starts after posting a 1.48 ERA in his first four.
“He’s a young kid that’s learning,” Snitker said. “But he got into trouble and minimized damage a couple of times today. The walks were an issue, but the stuff was really good. You just want to keep running him out there because it’s definitely good, and he’ll learn, he’ll get better as he goes. But it’s good for him to experience all this.”
Each of the first three relievers the Braves used issued a walk to make it seven walks through the first seven innings, with five of those runners scoring in that span to account for much of the damage as the Nationals took a 7-5 lead.
Left-hander Ian Krol, who’s been bad in most outings the past month, was quite bad when he replaced Newcomb to start the fifth inning with the Braves trailing 4-3. Krol retired the first batter, then walked Ryan Zimmerman before giving up three consecutive singles to Daniel Murphy, Anthony Rendon and Matt Wieters, with Wieters driving in two runs.
The Braves have a penchant for comebacks and threatened to pull off another Sunday when Camargo led off the sixth inning with his first major league home run. Freeman followed with a single and went to third on right fielder Bryce Harper’s fielding error on the play. One walk later, Freeman scored on a fielder’s choice to cut the lead to one run, 6-5.
But the Nationals took advantage of another free pass in the seventh inning after Jose Ramirez walked Rendon, who had two hits and two walks in four plate appearances. He stole second base and went to third on catcher Tyler Flowers’ throwing error on the play, then scored on a Wieters sacrifice fly for a 7-5 lead.
The Nationals tacked on three runs in the eighth against lefty Sam Freeman on four hits including Daniel Murphy’s two-run double.
Freeman continued to hit as if he never left the lineup. His home run was his second in six games since returning from a seven-week DL stint for a fractured wrist. He came back after playing just parts of two minor league rehab games and has gone 10-for-26 (.385) with five extra-base hits and 11 RBIs in six games, including two homers and eight RBIs in the four-game series at Nationals Park.
In his past 84 games against the Nationals, Freeman has hit .367 with 45 extra-base hits including 14 homers.
Newcomb had a 1.48 ERA and .202 opponents’ average in his first four major league starts, lasting at least six innings in each and allowing just 18 hits, four earned runs and eight walks with 21 strikeouts in 24 1/3 innings combined.
In two starts since then he’s given up 14 hits, 11 earned runs and six walks with nine strikeouts in 7 1/3 innings, including 10 hits and seven runs allowed in 3 1/3 innings in a July 4 loss against the Astros. A barrage of hits hurt him that day, a flurry of walks did much of the damage Sunday.
He walked the first two batters he faced Saturday and needed 39 pitches to get through the first inning, not before giving up a sacrifice fly to Zimmerman and a two-run double to Rendon on a 1-2 fastball that got too much of the plate.
“It was a little tough (for him) out of the chute,” Flowers said. “It wasn’t big misses, but missing just enough where it wasn’t getting called. And then later on in the inning you get a couple of closer ones but you don’t get the benefit of the doubt after kind of establishing that you’re not pumping strikes in there. It was a good lesson to be learned though.
“Also, you should take a lot of positives out of it where a couple of those innings could have gotten out of hand quickly. He was pretty close to getting out of the first with just one (run), one pitch away after a lot of pitches.”
He retired seven of the next eight batters before running into his bugaboo again in the fourth when Newcomb issued consecutive walks to start the inning. This time he walked the Nos. 6-7 hitters, Rendon and Wieters, and eight-hole hitter Chris Heisey made him pay by smacking a double off the left-center wall to put the Nationals back in front, 4-3.
