TORONTO – Jonny Gomes' leadoff homer in the eighth inning Friday gave the Braves a lead they finally wouldn't relinquish in a rollicking 8-7 win over the Blue Jays, and also raised the veteran outfielder's career total to 10 pinch-hit homers, three more than any other active major leaguer.
But don’t for a second think this pinch-hitting gig is a piece of cake for the grizzled Gomes.
“If you have success at it or you don’t have success at it, the end result is, it’s hard,” said Gomes, who was 2-for-3 as a pinch-hitter through Friday, after going 6-for-26 (.231) with two homers, seven RBIs, eight walks and a .389 on-base percentage as a pinch-hitter last season with Boston and Oakland.
He’s gotten better in the role with experience during a 13-year career. Gomes had been 21-for-115 (.183) as a pinch-hitter before last season, with exactly one-third of those previous hits being home runs. So even when he wasn’t getting a lot of hits in the role, he impacted plenty of games in a big way.
Gomes snapped a 5-5 tie with his homer Friday off Brett Cecil made him 6-for-9 with two homers and four walks in against the left-hander, and Freddie Freeman added a two-out, two-run homer off Cecil that pushed the lead to 8-5. Before Friday, Cecil had a scoreless-innings streak of 22 1/3 innings over 25 appearances dating to last season.
When a reporter mentioned to Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez afterward that Gomes had quite a bit of success in his career matchups with Cecil, Gonzalez smiled and said, “Yeah, I could read.”
“There’s an opportunity, you’ve got this weapon sitting in the dugout, Jonny Gomes, who traditionally wears out left-handed pitchers,” Gonzlaez said. “And you get an opportunity to get the matchup that I want in that situation, and we use it. We took advantage of it. And good for Jonny Gomes, he sits around for eight innings at that time, but he’s ready to go, he’s prepared and ready to go. And you call his number, he’s going to give you a good at-bat.”
The Braves needed the insurance runs when the Blue Jays scored two runs in the eighth against Jim Johnson, including a leadoff homer by Russell Martin that got the Rogers Centre crowd back into the game. Johnson had given up three hits in five scoreless appearances all season before allowing three hits and two runs in the eighth inning Friday.
Freeman’s third homer of the season proved to be the decisive blow, but the first baseman credited Gomes with being the impetus for the eighth-inning outburst that carried the Braves to their seventh win in 10 games and snapped a two-game skid.
“He didn’t sit down the whole game,” Freeman said. “It seemed like he was fired up, ready to go, and then they called his name and he went and did his job. He doesn’t want any recognition because he expects to do that; that’s his job. But we’ll give it to him.”
It was the second homer for Gomes in 17 at-bats this season before Saturday, when he made his fifth start of the season in left field, against Blue Jays knuckleballer R.A. Dickey.
Gonzalez was asked what it took for a hitter to be able to come through like that with any regularity as a pinch-hitter who’s in the regular lineup less than half the time.
“A guy who’s done it before, a guy that knows his role,” Gonzalez said. “A guy that, when you watch him play, he’s intense, he’s in there cheering for his team, for his teammates, but he’s ready. You talk about (his role) with him all winter, and this is one of his situations. We said, you’re going to get every left-handed pitcher that we face, and you’re going to get some selected right-handers; we don’t want him sitting around for five or six days.
“And you get an opportunity where the matchup is really, really in your favor, you take advantage of it.”
