Their primary strengths have been starting pitching and hitting home runs, and Saturday night the surging Braves stung the Reds with both components.
Freddie Freeman hit a two-run homer in the first inning and Justin Upton and Evan Gattis hit back-to-back jacks in the third inning, more than enough support for rookie pitcher David Hale in a 4-1 win at Turner Field.
Hale (1-0) allowed just two hits, one run and two walks with four strikeouts in a career-high eight innings, and the Marietta native was nearly perfect after giving up a two-out RBI double by Ryan Ludwick in the first. He retired the last 14 batters he faced and recorded 22 outs in his last 22 batters, reducing that 1-0 first-inning deficit to a blip.
“He’s not the type of guy to get rattled,” Upton said. “He’s cool, calm and collected most of the time. So it’s not surprising to us.”
The only batter to reach base after Ludwick was Jay Bruce on a leadoff walk in the fourth inning, and he was erased when Hale induced an inning-ending double-play grounder. Craig Kimbrel allowed a walk in the ninth inning before striking out Brandon Phillips and Jay Bruce to convert his eighth save.
“After the first inning he settled down and did a nice job getting us deep in the ballgame,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said of Hale. “He did a nice job, and then offensively, Justin and Freeman and Gattis with home runs — pretty much that was it. That was all the runs we needed.”
Hale is 2-0 with a 1.83 ERA in six career starts and said Saturday was probably the best he’s thrown in the majors.
“I think so,” he said. “I had command of all my pitches better than I have (before). In terms of command, I think this is the best it’s been.”
There’s been plenty of speculation that he could be the odd man out of the majors’ top rotation when Mike Minor is activated from the disabled list in the next week or so. Hale was asked if he thought about that Saturday.
“Obviously that stuff runs through my head,” he said. “But I try not to let it go too deep. My goal is to come out here and do the best I can, and let things fall the way they will. So we’ll see what happens.”
Asked if Hale’s performance Saturday make a decision more difficult, Gonzalez declined to discuss the rotation situation.
Justin Upton went 3-for-3 with a walk in four plate appearances, and brother B.J. Upton had a first-inning infield single for his 1,000th career hit. It was cue shot of a hit, but a milestone is a milestone, and B.J. said it was special for him.
“Yeah, definitely,” he said. “Any time you can stay around long enough to get 1,000 hits in the big leagues, that’s pretty cool. All the guys congratulated me. J-Hey (Jason Heyward) told me it was probably going to be a bloop, because of the two balls I hit (hard) yesterday. It was very similar to a bloop, but I’ll take it, and I’ll take the 1,000.”
If not for a leaping catch by Ludwick with his glove above the left-field fence in the third inning, Freeman could’ve had two homers and the Braves might have had three consecutive homers in an inning for the second time in two weeks.
Upton followed Freeman with a homer to straightaway center, his sixth in 29 at-bats over his past nine home games, including a three-run homer in the first inning of Friday’s 5-4 series-opening win.
Gattis followed Upton with a home run to left field, giving the big catcher five homers and 10 RBIs in his past 10 games. Upton leads the Braves with seven homers, while Freeman and Gattis have six apiece.
Three homers off Mike Leake (2-2) matched the career-high for the Reds right-hander.
The Braves have out-homered opponents’ 29-9, and 48 of the their 88 runs this season have come via home runs.
“We’ve got power up and down this lineup,” Justin Upton said. “It’s just a matter of harnessing it and making sure that’s not what we’re trying to do every time up. Try to take our hits when we can, then when mistakes are made we need to capitalize on those.”
The Braves (16-7) clinched their seventh series win in eight, and they’ll go for a sweep of the Reds in the homestand finale Sunday, with Julio Teheran facing Johnny Cueto in a matchup of two of the National League’s top pitchers.
It was the 11th win in 14 games for the Braves, who have the second-best record in the majors and a maintained a 2 ½-game lead on Washington in the NL East standings.
Justin Upton has 142 career homers, 36 of which have been hit in April. That’s 10 more than he’s hit in any other month, and more homers in March/April since 2008 than all other major leaguers except Ryan Braun (43) and Albert Pujols (40).
“J-Up” has hit .486 with six homers in 11 home games this season, and .191 with one homer in 12 road games.
Once the Braves staked him to a lead, Hale pitched as if on a mission not to let the Reds even think about a comeback.
“A kid like that who’s only got six major league starts under his belt, it’s good to help settle him down” by getting him a lead, Gonzalez said. “But you’ve still got to go out there and throw strikes, and sometimes when the game isn’t close a young kid will have a mental lapse. But I didn’t see any from David at all today.”
It was the 21st time in 23 games that a Braves starter allowed two or fewer earned runs. They have a majors-leading 1.65 starters ERA, more than a half-run better than the next-best, and the Braves’ 2.14 overall team ERA is also the best in the majors by a significant margin.
Hale was asked if there was pressure when all the other starters are pitching so well (the other four in the Braves’ rotation where all in the top 10 in the National League in individual ERA).
“Yeah, it’s a little pressure,” he said. “But I think at the same time, we kind of feed off of each other. It makes each one of us want to go out there and one-up the next guy, and just keep competing with each other. Friendly-wise, obviously. And just keep everything going the way it’s been going.”
