Bryce Harper has five home runs and 10 RBIs in the Nationals’ past two games, and the Braves can only hope the 22-year-old slugger is ready to cool off for the next couple of days.
Harper’s two-run homer in the sixth inning off Eric Stults erased the Braves’ 2-1 lead, and he added a three-run homer in the eighth as the Nationals used five homers to roll to a 9-2 win in a series opener at Nationals Park Friday night.
Danny Espinosa also homered twice and Jayson Werth once for the Nationals, who moved a half-game ahead of the Braves (14-15) in the National League East standings.
“I thought it was a really good baseball game, for about 6 ½ innings,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. “Stultsy did a terrific job, gave us a really good opportunity to win a game, and they were able to add on. And the seventh inning and the eighth inning just really got away from us.”
Harper added a three-run homer off Williams Perez in the right-hander’s major league debut, after Perez gave up a leadoff walk to Yunel Escobar and a single by the next batter, Werth. Harper homered three times and drove in five runs in Wednesday’s 7-5, series-clinching win against the Marlins.
‘He’s comfortable now, and he’s definitely showing it,” said Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman, whose doubles in the first and third innings helped the Braves to a 2-0 lead, before Harper fueled a Nationals outburst. “Couple of mistakes tonight and he didn’t miss them.”
Of Harper’s five homers and 10 RBIs in two games, Freeman said, “That’s special. That’s a special month for a lot of people, and he’s done it in two days. Hopefully he stops in the next two days so we can get out here and get him out the next couple of days.”
A 2-0 lead and Stults’ quality start — six innings, seven hits, three runs, season-high seven strikeouts — weren’t nearly enough against the Nationals and left-hander Gio Gonzalez (3-2), who snapped an 0-7 skid against the Braves and won for just the third time in 12 career starts against them.
Gonzalez allowed five hits, two runs and one walk with eight strikeouts in seven innings, and the Nationals got all their runs on homers from Werth, Harper and Espinosa, whose solo shot in the seventh against rookie reliever Brandon Cunniff pushed the lead to 4-2.
Espinosa added a two-run shot off Trevor Cahill in the five-run eighth, after Harper wrecked Perez’s debut.
Werth’s leadoff homer in the fourth was the first of the season for the injury-slowed veteran. Harper followed immediately with a single but was thrown out on a relay throw by Andrelton Simmons, after Harper rounded first base too wide and center fielder Cameron Maybin hustled to get the ball to the rifle-armed Simmons.
Ryan Zimmerman followed with another single, the third consecutive hit to start the inning, but Stults retired the next two batters and appeared to have escaped a crucial situation.
But the Nationals were just getting loose.
Harper became the 10th-youngest player in major league history to hit three homers in a game Wednesday. The Nationals were off Thursday, and he came back with another huge night Friday to raise his team-high totals to 10 homers and 25 RBIs.
“It was a great team win tonight,” Harper said. “That was a lot of fun out there.”
Fredi Gonzalez said, “He’s swinging. He’s a special guy, special talent. This guy is growing up in the major leagues under a microscope. Shoot, I think he’s done a pretty job with it. I think going forward, maybe tomorrow we’ll tell him what’s coming, maybe we’ll get him out of his hot streak ….
“You can tell from the dugout that his head’s not moving, he’s right there, he’s locked in.”
Perez, called up this week from Triple-A, gave up two hits including the first-pitch homer to Harper before recording his first out. He was charged with two hits, four runs and two walks in one-third of an inning for a 108.00 ERA.
“I thought we made good pitches on (Harper) his first couple of at-bats, then made a couple of mistakes,” Braves catcher A.J. Pierzynski said. “Young kid (Perez) came in and threw one right down the middle to him after being all over the place the first two hitters. But he’s a good player and took advantage of mistakes and hit home runs.”
The Braves led 2-1 with one out in the bottom of the sixth inning when Stults threw Harper four consecutive fastballs in the 89-90 mph range, with Escobar at first base after a leadoff single. Harper fouled off the first one, took the second for a ball, swung and missed the third, and crushed the fourth, a 90-mph pitch that went out faster than it arrived.
The two-run homer gave the Nats a 3-2 lead, and they were soon off to the races.
“Both the guys that started today were pretty good,” Pierzynski said. “Stultsy had two mistakes, both with two strikes, both pitches up, both pitches end up out of the park. And it kind of got away from us real quick. But he threw the ball well and deserved a better result.”
Gio Gonzalez had been 2-8 with a 5.20 ERA in 11 starts against the Braves before Friday, including 0-7 with a 5.32 ERA in his past eight. It was his highest ERA against any National League opponent and most losses against any team.
In his eight-start winless streak against the Braves, Gonzalez had allowed two or fewer earned runs five times, but his teams scored one or no runs while he was in the game in all eight starts.
On Friday, the Nationals made sure they gave him some long-overdue support.
