He’s 35 and working for his sixth major league team in five seasons, but Aaron Harang hardly looked the part of journeyman Wednesday when he took a no-hitter to the seventh inning against the Brewers in his Braves debut.
Chris Johnson’s two-out homer in the seventh inning was the first hit for either team and accounted for all the scoring in a 1-0 Braves win that clinched a season-opening series at Miller Park.
“Any time you win a game 1-nothing, all the credit goes to the starting pitcher and the bullpen,” Johnson said. “They did an awesome job. (Harang) was amazing. Kudos go to the pitching staff on this one.”
Nine days after signing with the injury-plagued Braves as a stopgap starter, Harang allowed two hits and one walk with three strikeouts in 6 2/3 scoreless innings as the Braves won their second in a row for a 2-1 series win. Matt Garza also took a no-hitter to the seventh inning and struck out seven batters in eight innings, but the Braves prevailed.
“That was an intense game — fun, but intense,” said Harang, who retired 18 of 19 batters before Logan Schafer singled up the middle to start the seventh and end the no-hit bit. “After the first hit, emotions kind of just run out of you for a minute. Knowing that you have a 1-nothing lead, you’ve got to stay in there and regain your focus and keep executing pitches.”
Braves reliever Luis Avilan got the last out of the seventh inning with runners on the corners, and David Carpenter and Craig Kimbrel pitched a perfect inning apiece. Kimbrel recorded his second save in 16 hours for the Braves, who have Thursday off in Washington before a highly anticipated weekend series against the Nationals that starts Friday.
Harang is scheduled to pitch the Braves’ home opener Tuesday against the Mets, and plenty of Braves fans probably feel better about that matchup after the big right-hander’s performance Wednesday.
“For him to come out there and throw like that today was obviously a huge pick-me-up for us,” right fielder Jason Heyward said. “He battled. He wanted the ball. He went out there and pitched, threw strikes. That’s all we can ask for from him. I bet he would have liked some more offense, but the guy on the other side was throwing just as well.”
Lyle Overbay was the only Brewer to reach base through six innings, on a third-inning walk. Until the seventh, the closest the Brewers got to a hit was Ryan Braun’s sinking liner to right field with one out in the fourth, which Heyward made a tremendous play on, charging and sliding to make the catch just before the ball could hit the ground.
“The guys were there,” Harang said. “I was trying to work fast to keep them from getting flat-footed, and they were out there making plays for me.”
Heyward made a similarly spectacular play in the ninth inning, racing to the right-center gap and sliding to making a daring catch on Carlos Gomez’s fly ball to prevent a leadoff hit.
Garza matched Harang pitch-for-pitch through six innings, with Freddie Freeman the only Brave to reach base in that span, on a two-out walk in the fourth. But the highly unlikely double no-hitter bid — there has never been a double no-hitter in the majors — ended when Johnson lined a home run over the left-center fence into the Brewers’ bullpen.
With two out and a 1-0 count, Garza hung a sinker knee-high over the middle, and Johnson scorched it.
“The ball I hit was probably the only ball that he missed out over the plate,” Johnson said. “When he was trying to come in he was missing in, when he was trying to go away he was missing away. Guys like that are hard to hit. It’s like you step in the box and the next thing you know you’re 0-1.”
Harang’s no-hit flirtation ended soon after, when Schafer led off the seventh with a single up the middle. Harang got the next batter Ryan Braun to ground into a force at second, then Aramis Ramirez singled to put runners on the corners and give the Brewers their only prime scoring opportunity.
The Braves thwarted it, with Harang getting Jonathan Lucroy to pop out to second before Avilan induced an inning-ending ground out by pinch-hitter Rickie Weeks.
“(Harang) pitched tremendous baseball,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. “Our bullpen was nails. I think we retired every hitter the bullpen faced after Aaron came out. You get that type of start from your starters and hand it to our bullpen that did a good job all last year and so far this year, you’ve got a good chance to win a ballgame.
“We’ve only given up, what, (four runs) in this series and ended up winning two out of three? That’s pretty darn good baseball right there.”
