WASHINGTON – In a gut-wrenching turn of events for the Braves, shortstop Andrelton Simmons botched a ninth-inning grounder and two runs scored to give Washington a 6-5 win in the first game of a doubleheader at Nationals Park, delaying Atlanta's division-clinching opportunity for at least another day.
Closer Craig Kimbrel allowed three runs (two earned) in the ninth for his first blown save since May 7, and the Braves’ magic number to clinch the National League East title remained at four. If they had won, they would’ve had a chance to clinch their first division title since 2005 by winning the second game of the doubleheader.
The Braves, after overcoming a 3-0 first-inning deficit, wasted a go-ahead, two-run homer by Evan Gattis in the eighth inning and lost for the eighth time in their past 12 games.
“You always want the ball hit to Simmons, and you always want the ball in Kimbrel’s hand in the ninth inning,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. “But it’s a cruel game sometimes.”
Kimbrel was charged with three runs for the first time in his major league career and snapped a franchise-record string of 37 consecutive saves with his fourth blown save in 51 opportunities this season. It was the fifth time he’s blown a two-run lead and second time this season.
“That was a big game for us, and I wasn’t able to do my job and close it out,” said Kimbrel (3-3), who walked the first and third batters of the ninth inning, sandwiched around an infield single that second baseman Elliot Johnson tried unsuccessfully to flip with his glove to Simmons covering the base.
Chad Tracy’s bases-loaded ground out drove in a run to cut the lead to 5-4, and with runners on second and third and one out, Denard Span hit a ground ball that Simmons fields cleanly perhaps 99.9 percent of the time. But not this time.
It went between his legs, barely glancing off his glove and rolling into the outfield. Span was credited with the tying RBI and Anthony Rendon scored easily from second with the winning run.
“I just missed it,” said Simmons, widely regarded as the best defensive shortstop in baseball. “No excuses. Just missed the ball.”
Like the rest of the Braves and their followers, Gattis was surprised to see the error by Simmons.
“Yeah, of all the guys,” Gattis said. “It’s one of those things. That’s baseball. Nobody knows what’s going to happen. Could happen to anybody. Tough loss.”
The surging Nationals won for the ninth time in 10 games, and beat the Braves for just the fifth time in 17 games this season and the first time in seven games at Nationals Park.
They still had a nine-game lead over the Nationals in the division standings, but the Braves were just two games ahead of Pittsburgh and St. Louis for the NL’s best record before Tuesday night’s games.
As the only major league division leader with a losing record on the road (37-39 before Tuesday night), the Braves are trying to finish with the league’s best record to assure home-field advantage in the NL playoffs.
Gonzalez noted two walks issued by starter Mike Minor against the first batters in the first inning (both scored), and two by Kimbrel in the ninth (both scored), along with the play by Elliot Johnson, whom the manager thought might’ve had time to take the ball from his glove and throw to second with slow-footed Adam LaRoche running.
Kimbrel allowed multiple runs for the first time since giving up two runs on two homers May 7 at Cincinnati, which was his last blown save before Tuesday. He had allowed just one run in his next 46 appearances before giving up a homer to San Diego’s Chase Headley in the ninth inning of Saturday’s 2-1 win against the Padres.
Kimbrel has been scored upon in consecutive appearances for the first time since he gave up a run in three in a row April 29-May 4, 2012. He had posted a 0.80 ERA in 113 appearances since then before Tuesday, when the major league saves leader walked LaRoche to start the ninth inning and walked Rendon to load the bases with none out.
“I just couldn’t throw strikes,” Kimbrel said. “I couldn’t get my curveball over. That was the biggest thing: If I can’t get that over for a strike, it kind of opens up the door…. They didn’t hit a ball out of the infield and scored three runs. It’s tough. Obviously that was a big game for us. We wanted to win it. I wasn’t able to do my job. Hopefully I can come back the second game and do it.”
Minor gave up three runs in the first inning, but the left-hander settled down and retired the last 13 batters he faced in a six-inning outing. He was charged with three runs, three hits and four walks with three strikeouts.
“I felt good” in the first inning, said Minor, who thought he was barely missing on a lot of pitches. “But I also knew I’d given up three runs, and I needed to be pretty much flawless (after that) to keep us in the game.”
The Braves trailed 3-0 until Freddie Freeman’s sacrifice fly in the sixth inning, which made him Atlanta’s first 100-RBI man since Chipper Jones (102) and Jeff Francoeur (105) each topped 100 in 2007.
Dan Uggla’s two-out pinch-hit single in the seventh inning cut the Nationals’ lead to 3-2 and gave the slumping and recently benched second baseman his first RBI since Aug. 11.
That set the stage for Gattis, whose homer off Tyler Clippard in the eighth inning was his 20th of the season, tops among major league rookies. After Freeman drew a one-out walk, Gattis fell behind 0-2 before driving a fastball to the center-field bleachers, right over the large #NATITUDE sign painted on that section of the fence.
The Braves have scored at least one run against Clippard in each of his six appearances against them this season, totaling nine hits, seven runs, three homers and six walks in 5-2/3 innings against the right-hander. It would’ve been his third loss against the Braves this season, if they’d held onto the lead.
Gattis, who also leads major league rookies with 59 RBIs, hit .200 with just one homer in 100 at-bats during a 30-game stretch from June 12 to Aug. 30. He wasn’t playing much near the end of that period, so the Braves sent him to Triple-A for three games to put into action some adjustments he had made in his swing and approach.
Since returning from that short stint at Gwinnett, Gattis has five homers and 12 RBIs in 13 games.
The Braves added a run ninth after Elliot Johnson hit a one-out single and went to second on Bryce Harper’s throwing error on the play. Johnson stole second base and scored when Freeman hit a two-out grounder that was booted by Nationals shortstop Ian Desmond.
They handed a two-run lead to Kimbrel, which seemed about as close to a sure thing as you’ll find in baseball.
“I feel like with Craig, they can get bases loaded with no outs and you still feel like he’s going to get out of it,” Minor said. “He’s going to strike out the side. That’s just the kind of pitcher he is, a power pitcher. You hardly ever see these kind of days.”
