As big a lift as Paul Maholm has given the Braves over his first three starts, the Braves offense couldn’t help him get past a three-run sixth inning Saturday and he took his first loss of the season 3-1 to the Pirates.
Maholm had cruised past his former teammates for five scoreless innings before Andrew McCutchen - a guy he still calls “Cutch” - timed him for an RBI double off the right field wall. That broke up a streak of 25 1/3 scoreless innings from Maholm to start the season and helped turned his night sour.
Four pitches later, Gaby Sanchez followed with a two-run home run to center to all but put it out of reach against a Braves offense that has gone conspicuously quiet.
“(Maholm) kept us in the ballgame and we let him down tonight,” said Chris Johnson, who had two of the Braves four hits.
After losing only once in their first 13 games this season, the Braves (13-4) have lost three times in the past four games while scoring only seven runs. And that was with six of them coming in Thursday night’s series-opening win. The Braves followed that up with their first back-to-back losses of the season.
When the home runs dry up, so has the Braves offense. And with four regular hitters in the lineup batting under .200, problems are starting to show. The Braves struck out 13 times Saturday night, including nine against starter James McDonald. Juan Francisco went 0-for-4 with four strikeouts.
“We’re not hitting on all cylinders but our good starting pitching and a good bullpen has covered it up a little bit,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. “Now you run into a club that’s got as good a pitching going right now, you’ve got to score runs.”
The Braves have scored one or no runs in three of the past four games, including two shutouts. They scored their only run Saturday on a bases-loaded walk by Andrelton Simmons in the second inning. But the Braves let McDonald off the hook in that inning after loading the bases with nobody out and scoring only once.
McDonald hit a batter and walked two in the inning but struck out three Braves hitters on nine pitches to escape further damage.
“We’re just not getting those good at-bats consistently,” Gonzalez said.
Dan Uggla, one of those four regulars who is struggling at the plate, had to leave Saturday’s game in the fourth inning with a strained left calf muscle. He felt it running up the line on a groundout and left the game in hopes he would only need a day or two to rest it.
“It’s nothing big,” Uggla said. “But it was enough to where it could have gotten real bad if I stayed in.”
The Pirates have won 8 of 11 after starting the season 1-5. They hit their fourth home run of the series when Sanchez lodged a ball into the shrubbery spelling “Pirates” beyond the center field fence.
McCutchen went 2-for-4 with two doubles – both off Maholm - to punctuate his Bobblehead night at PNC Park.
“I skated by the first few outings without really making any mistakes and I made two today,” said Maholm, who now actually has an ERA of 1.03.
Maholm was the first starter in the majors to open a season with 25 or more scoreless innings since Luis Tiant opened the 1966 season with 27 scoreless for Cleveland, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
“I wasn’t worried about the streak,” Maholm said. “I was more ticked with not being able to execute a couple pitches when I needed to.”
Maholm didn’t give up his first hit – and first hard-hit ball - until McCutchen doubled off the center field wall with two outs in the fourth inning. He worked out of a two-runner jam in the fifth. But in the sixth he gave up a costly leadoff walk to Starling Marte after having him 0-2 that set things up McCutchen and Sanchez.
