MIAMI – After Derek Lowe took a no-hitter to the seventh inning and Eric O’Flaherty bailed him out of a bases-loaded jam, it was up to Jonny Venters and Craig Kimbrel to get the Braves through the last two innings.
Kimbrel blew a two-run lead in the ninth and the Braves had to go to extra innings (again) before pulling out a 3-2 win against the Florida Marlins at Sun Life Stadium on Wednesday night.
Freddie Freeman hit the go-ahead single in the 10th inning, and Braves reliever Scott Linebrink struck out Gaby Sanchez with two on and two out in the bottom of the inning for his first save since July 3, 2009.
Freeman’s winning RBI came after a one-out walk by Chipper Jones and a Brian McCann single.
“We let it get away there in the ninth," McCann said after the Braves' 13th extra-innings game of the season and ninth in the past 25 games. "We fought back. We were resilient tonight.”
The Braves will try to complete a sweep of the sputtering Marlins, who are 1-9 in their past 10 games and have scored two runs or fewer in four of their past five.
Florida fired hitting coach John Mallee after the game and replaced him with Eduardo Perez, son of Hall-of-Famer Tony Perez, a Marlins special assistant.
The Marlins threatened in the bottom of the 1oth after reliever Scott Proctor allowed a one-out Chris Coghlan double and Omar Infante walk. But George Sherrill came in to strike out Greg Dobbs and Linebrink struck out Sanchez looking on a breaking ball that appeared to be a bit outside.
"Mac [catcher McCann] made it look real good," said Linebrink, who recorded the eighth save and first since July 2009, when he was with the White Sox. “It was big that we came right back out and scored [in the 10th], because it tends to be kind of flat when we’ve given up [a late lead].
"That’s been sort of the trend, when we’ve got to extras it’s taken two or three innings to come back and finally score. So these guys did a great job, Chipper getting on and Freddie driving him in right away."
The tumultuous last two innings reduced Lowe’s no-hit bid to a footnote, but for most of the night it had been the center of attention.
"The most important thing is, we were able to find a way to win," said Lowe, who allowed only one walk through six innings, before consecutive one-out singles in the seventh and a two-out walk that loaded the bases.
O'Flaherty then struck out Mike Stanton to preserve the 2-0 lead.
Mike Stanton's two-out, two-run single off Kimbrel in the ninth gave Kimbrel his fifth blown save in 23 opportunities. The rookie closer ended up getting the win after the Braves came back to take the lead for good in the 10th.
Kimbrel allowed a two-out walk and a John Buck double, then got ahead in the count 0-and-2 against Stanton. One close pitch later, Stanton singled through the right side of the infield to drive in both runs.
"It’s a situation where you’ve got to respect Stanton completely, but you’ve got to give your closer an opportunity there to match up," said Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez, who managed the Marlins for 3-1/2 seasons before being fired in June 2010.
"We got two quick strikes on him, and the [third] pitch was a borderline pitch that could have gone either way. Then we didn’t execute the last pitch.”
McCann said, "We had the matchup we wanted [Kimbrel vs. Stanton] and he was able to catch up to it. He didn’t elevate [the pitch] as much as he wanted to... If you fall behind, you walk him. But if you get ahead, you can go a lot of places, especially if you throw 98 miles an hour. That was our game plan."
Kimbrel has a 4.70 ERA and three blown saves in his past 16 appearances. He's allowed two runs four times in that stretch.
"Just part of the learning curve," Gonzalez said.
Lowe held the Marlins hitless until one-out singles in the seventh by Dobbs and Sanchez. One out later, he walked Buck. With a two-run lead, Gonzalez wasn’t taking any chances and summoned O’Flaherty.
Lowe had a no-hitter for Boston in 2002, and was asked if he thought about the possibility of another as hitless innings clicked by Wednesday.
“Anytime you can get a little further in the game, I think you feel like you have a chance," he said. "But I was still [eight] outs away, and it’s still a close game. The inning kind of spiraled out of control pretty fast, and you’ve got to give a lot of credit to O’Flaherty coming in and and getting the big out."
Venters pitche a hitless eighth with two strikeouts, trimming his majors-leading ERA to 0.48 in a majors-leading 34 appearances.
The second-place Braves opened a two-game lead over the third-place Marlins in the National League East standings, but remained three games behind Philadelphia after the Phillies defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers 2-0.
Lowe extended a winless streak to six starts despite allowing no runs, two hits and two walks with five strikeouts in 7 2/3 innings. He threw 55 strikes in 86 pitches, and until the seventh the only runner to reach second against him did so on an error.
The Braves have totaled four runs in two nights against a Marlins team that had allowed six or more in six of their past eight games before this series.
They defeated the Marlins 1-0 on Tuesday, getting just two hits including a homer by Alex Gonzalez, who also had two hits and an RBI Wednesday.
Leadoff hitter Jordan Schafer had two hits and scored the Braves’ first two runs Wednesday, displaying speed the team lacked for much of the early season when he was in Triple-A. He has shown no lingering effects of a bunted foul ball Friday that left him with a sinus fracture, but kept him out of only one game.
Lowe had a 5.40 ERA in his previous five starts. But after six innings Wednesday, he looked ready to fire his second no-hitter. His last was against Tampa Bay, when he was 29-year-old ace for the Red Sox, 308 starts ago.
The no-hit bid ended on Dobbs’ single up the middle off the glove of shortstop Gonzalez, but Sanchez followed with a clean single to left.
When Lowe was replaced after the bases-loading walk, he received a standing ovation from the scant crowd.
Schafer singled in the first inning, stole second base and scored on McCann’s two-out single.With two out in the fifth, Schafer tripled to center field and scored on Gonzalez’s single. Gonzalez had been a majors-worst 0-for-21 with runners in scoring position and two outs.
The Braves had a chance to add more runs in the eighth inning after Jones doubled with one out and McCann was intentionally walked. But Freeman and .171-hitting Dan Uggla both struck out.
The Braves have scored just 60 runs in their past 21 games, but have a 12-9 record thanks to a 2.96 ERA in that period. They’ve scored 26 runs in their past nine games.
