His left oblique was healed, but Braves pitcher Matt Wisler’s previous pinpoint control didn’t return with him to the mound Tuesday.
Pitching for the first time since Aug. 31, Wisler gave up 10 hits and six runs without making it out of the fifth inning, and the Marlins held on for a 7-5 win against the rarely-go-quietly Braves at Turner Field. The 10 hits matched the career-high total Wisler allowed in another loss to the Marlins on July 3.
Freddie Freeman’s first-inning homer gave the Braves a 2-0 lead and gave their torrid-hitting first baseman his first 30-homer season, but the Marlins scored three runs in the third and never trailed again.
“Offense played well today,” Wisler said. “We scored enough runs for us to win the game, so it’s on me, that loss.”
After getting 10 hits against Wisler, the Marlins got no hits in the final 4 2/3 innings against three relievers.
The Braves made it interesting with two runs in the seventh inning on a Freeman sacrifice fly and a Nick Markakis two-run RBI single to pull within 6-5 before leaving the bases loaded, a recurring problem area for Atlanta.
“You just can’t keep coming back,” Braves interim manager Brian Snitker said of his team’s penchant for rallying late, even if they fall short a lot of the time. “At some point we’ve got to stop the bleeding and throw up a zero, and just weren’t able to do that. (The Braves) do a great job of coming back and coming back, but we’ve had a tough time throwing up a zero after some of them innings the last couple of days.”
Wisler lasted 4 1/3 innings and fell to 6-12 with a 5.00 ERA including 2-8 at Turner Field.
“I thought the biggest thing was probably his fastball command,” Snitker said. “Just left too many balls thigh-high and couldn’t get the ball down enough. And he paid for it.”
Wisler said, “Left the ball up today. Slider wasn’t as sharp as it’s been, either. I think just a little bit of rust. I still shouldn’t have an outing like that. It’s so frustrating to give up six runs like that. Just got to go back to work and improve for the next start.”
The Marlins added an insurance run without getting a hit in the eighth against Chris Withrow, who walked a batter and hit another to start the inning. After Justin Bour’s leadoff walk, Yefri Perez pinch-ran for him and stole second base, went to third on a sacrifice and scored on a wild pitch for a 7-5 lead.
The Braves also failed to score after loading the bases with one out in the fourth inning. They have a majors-worst .201 average (25-for-124) with bases loaded, with a sub-.490 OPS that’s some 70 points lower than the next-worst. Particularly significant given that they have the sixth-most at-bats in the majors with bases loaded.
“Just can’t pierce a gap regularly enough it seems like, with the bases loaded, to really do some damage,” Snitker said. “I can’t explain it.”
Wisler, who turned 23 on Monday, has made 42 career starts, and the only times he’s allowed double-digit hits have been each of his past two outings against Miami.
He hoped to pick up where left off two weeks ago, when he was 2-0 with a 1.29 ERA and .125 opponents’ average in first two starts following a stint in Triple-A, including a career-best 10 strikeouts in six innings Aug. 31 against the Padres in the game where he felt some soreness in his side late.
Instead of pitching like he did in those two starts, Wisler looked more like the guy who was 2-6 with a 7.71 ERA in his last 10 starts before getting sent down to the minors.
“I can’t keep having outings like this if I want to pitch up here for a long time,” he said. “I’ve got three outings (left this season) to kind of prove that I can still pitch up here and have confidence going into next year.”
After Matt Kemp’s 31st homer and fifth in the past 11 games tied the score in the fourth inning, 3-3, the Marlins strung together another three-run inning in the fifth beginning with a leadoff triple from Ichiro Suzuki. Wisler faced five batters in the inning and retired one before he was replaced.
Freeman’s two-run homer to center field in the first inning extended his hitting streak to 19 games – longest active in the majors – and pushed his on-base streak to 35 games. It was his 75th extra-base hit, the most for a Brave since Chipper Jones ad 75 in 2007.
Freeman, who also had a sacrifice fly in the seventh inning, needs five more extra-base hits to become the second Atlanta Brave to have as many as 80 in a season. Jones had 87 extra-base hits in his 1999 National League MVP season.
Staked to that 2-0 lead, Wisler ran into trouble in the third inning when he allowed a leadoff single to rookie pitcher Jake Esch, followed by two more singles from Dee Gordon and Ichiro, whose RBI cut the lead in half.
One out later, Christian Yelich hit a two-run double to put the Marlins ahead 3-2.
