It already was one of the wilder games in recent Braves history, and Chipper Jones took it to another level with his two-run walk-off homer in the 11th inning, giving the Braves a 15-13 win against the Philadelphia Phillies before a happily fatigued crowd at Turner Field on Wednesday night.
The 40-year-old third baseman got a curtain call from the many thousands who stayed around for the entire four-hour game, as the Braves snapped an eight-game losing skid against the Phillies in dramatic fashion.
After Brian McCann’s grand slam off Roy Halladay punctuated a remarkable comeback against one of the better pitchers in a generation, the Phillies came back and threatened to break hearts again across Braves Nation.
But these Braves have insisted at every opportunity that they aren’t last year’s Braves and aren’t going to crumble. On Wednesday night, they backed up the talk, coming back twice from huge deficits before pulling out a wild, exhilarating win.
After coming back from six down to take an 8-6 lead in the sixth inning, then falling behind again 12-8, the Braves roared back with a five-run eighth to reclaim the lead. But it still wasn't over.
The Phillies tied the score with a run in the ninth to hand Craig Kimbrel his first blown save of the season, and the Braves had to play beyond nine innings for the first time this season, but they pulled out the win to snap an eight-game losing streak against the Phillies that dated to last season.
McCann’s grand slam capped a six-run fifth inning that erased a seemingly insurmountable deficit against Halladay, and Jason Heyward’s two-run single in the sixth put the Braves ahead 8-6 and sent the Turner Field crowd into another round of ecstatic chopping and chanting.
But the Phillies rose from the slab, and Carlos Ruiz’s three-run homer off reliever Eric O’Flaherty in the seventh gave the Phillies the lead, which they added to when Ruiz hit a three-run double in the eighth off Kris Medlen during another plunge on the roller-coaster ride taken by a crowd of 26,504.
They had lost 18 of their past 25 against the Phillies before Wednesday, and for much of the ninth it looked as if the mental edge would only grow for the five-time defending NL East champions.
That is, until the Braves mustered another rally in the eighth against Jose Contreras, using two hits, an error and a walk. Tyler Pastornicky had an RBI single off Contreras, and Michael Bourn drew a base-loaded walk after reliever Michael Schwimer entered the fray.
Martin Prado followed with a two-run single to tie, and the crowd was on its feet again, re-energized. Freddie Freeman followed with a sacrifice fly for a 13-12 lead.
Braves starter Tommy Hanson lasted just 3 2/3 innings and gave up eight hits and four runs with two walk. He threw 95 pitches and recorded 11 outs. Reliever Cristhian Martinez gave up two more runs in the fifth as the Phillies produced more run support for Halladay than they typically provide for him in three or four games combined.
O’Flaherty gave up three runs on two hits and a walk in the seventh to give him seven earned runs allowed in 8 1/3 innings this season -- only one fewer than he allowed in 73 2/3 innings in 2011, when he set a major league record with a 0.98 ERA in 78 appearances.
Halladay gave up 12 hits and eight earned runs in 5 1/3 innings, his worst start in five years. McCann became just the fourth player to hit a grand slam off Halladay, 35, a two-time former Cy Young Award winner.
The Braves trailed 6-0 until the fifth, when they got five singles off Halladay before McCann’s two-out grand slam to the right-field seats, the eighth slam of the catcher’s career. Bourn and Prado each singled in a run before McCann's slam to give the Braves the first six-hit inning off Halladay since 2007.
Heyward’s pinch-hit two-run double in his first plate appearance since Sunday (strained oblique), made it the most earned runs against Halladay since he was charged with 12 hits and nine earned runs in 5 1/3 innings at Texas on May 5, 2007.
Halladay had allowed only nine earned runs in 47 innings in six career starts against the Braves before Wednesday.
