Jace Peterson had been in a hitting funk for nearly a month, and Nick Markakis had played 91 games and still not hit a home run for the Braves. Monday was their night to shake things up.
Markakis hit a two-run homer and Peterson drove in three runs with two hits including a base-loaded double, helping the Braves and rookie pitcher Matt Wisler to a 7-5 win in a series opener against the surging Los Angeles Dodgers.
“We won the ballgame, that’s the main thing,” said Markakis, who had a majors-high 393 homerless plate appearances this season before squaring up a belt-high, 0-2 changeup in the first inning from former Braves pitcher Brandon Beachy.
“We had a lot of great at-bats. Got some guys on base. Jace has been unbelievable with the bases loaded this year; I wish he could hit every time with the bases loaded,” Markakis said. “We just had some timely hitting with guys on base, and things worked out. Bullpen did a good job.”
Peterson had a bases-loaded, two-run double off Beachy in the fourth to push the lead to 4-0, before the Dodgers tied the score with four runs in the fifth off Wisler, including a two-run homer by Adrian Gonzalez.
But the Braves took the lead for good on an RBI single in the bottom of the inning by Juan Uribe, who was traded from the Dodgers to the Braves in May. The Braves added two runs in the sixth on three hits including Peterson’s RBI single, with a second run scoring on a fielder’s choice throw on the play to push the lead to 7-4.
In his sixth major league start, Wisler (4-1) allowed eight hits and four runs with two strikeouts in six innings. He bounced back from the four-run fifth to pitch a perfect sixth including two strikeouts for his final outs.
“The offense definitely picked us up today, picked me up,” Wisler said. “The bullpen came in and closed it. They gave us early lead, and I gave up the lead in the fifth. They picked me right back up in the bottom of the fifth, scored some runs, so that was huge.”
The Dodgers threatened in the seventh and again in the ninth. In the seventh, they got consecutive singles by Gonzalez and Justin Turner to start the inning against left-hander Andrew McKirahan, in his first game back after an 80-game drug suspension. Arodys Vizcaino was brought in at that point and gave up a single by Scott Van Slyke through the left side, but left fielder Eury Perez made a strong throw to the plate — the play of the game — to nail Gonzalez trying to score.
Vizcaino, the heir apparent closer if the Braves trade Jim Johnson, retired the next two batters on routine fly balls to get out of the inning with the 7-4 lead intact.
In the ninth, the Dodgers loaded the bases with none out on three consecutive singles off Johnson, who induced a double-play grounder by Howie Kendrick — scoring a run — and a groundout by Gonzalez for his seventh save.
Beachy, in his second start since having a second elbow ligament replacement surgery in March 2014 as a Brave, lasted four innings and gave up five hits, four runs and three walks with three strikeouts.
Perez’s two-out double started Beachy’s fourth-inning trouble. Andrelton Simmons was walked intentionally to bring up Wisler, who got ahead in the count 3-0 and drew a five-pitch walk. That load the bases for Peterson, who’s made hitting with the bases full look ridiculously easy in his first full season in the majors.
Peterson hit Beachy’s first pitch for an opposite-field double just inside the left-field line, pushing the lead to 4-0 and leaving Peterson with this bases-loaded hitting line: 9-for-14 with three doubles, a triple, a grand slam, a sacrifice fly and a majors-leading 22 RBIs.
“He’s a tough kid that doesn’t get rattled much,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. “In those situations you’ve got to keep your poise and it seems like he does that really well.”
Wisler retired 12 of the first 13 Dodgers before consecutive two-out singles in the fourth by Turner and Andre Ethier. He got out of that with a Yasiel Puig groundout.
The fifth inning was a different story. The Dodgers can strike quickly, as Wisler learned when he gave up four runs and three extra-base hit in a span of four pitches.
No. 8 hitter Austin Barnes and pinch-hitter Alex Guerrero had consecutive one-out singles to put runners on the corners. After a fielder’s choice grounder, Howie Kendrick hit a two-run double, and two pitches later Gonzalez unloaded on a 1-0, 92-mph fastball down the middle, hitting it on a high arc into the right-field bleachers.
“That’s definitely a learning situation for me,” Wisler said. “I’ve got to learn to get out of that with no runs instead of the four runs I gave up. So, definitely a learning game, but it’s great to be able to work through that and be able to go out in the sixth inning and get a zero up.”
Fredi Gonzalez said, “I’m glad we ran him back out there in the sixth. That was probably his best inning. That was a nice development inning for him. He gives up four in the fifth inning to tie the game and then we get a run and he goes back out there and gives us a clean inning. He might have had his best breaking ball in the sixth. He didn’t have his secondary pitches in the first four, five innings. He had nothing. He was just throwing fastballs against some professional hitters on the other side there, but he did a nice job.”
Markakis came in batting .286 – only four points below his career mark – and had a .372 on-base percentage that ranked 10th in the National League, but the 10-year veteran had not hit a home run since Game 2 of the division series for Baltimore, when he hit one off Detroit’s Justin Verlander.
“I’m just out there trying to get on base, get hits any way they come, whether it’s single, double, triple, home run — I don’t care,” said Markakis, still trying to regain his power strong after having neck surgery in December that kept him from working out all winter. “I’m just trying to get my hits and help win the ballgame.”
While never known as a big power hitter, Markakis had double-digit home run totals in each of his nine seasons with the Orioles, including a pair of 20-homer seasons early in his career, and 14 homers in 2014 despite playing with a herniated disk that had progressively worsened since it was first diagnosed in March 2013.
He signed a four-year, $44 million contract with the Braves and had surgery about two weeks later in mid-December. Markakis and the Braves knew it would be a process for him to regain his strength, since Markakis wasn’t cleared to begin running and lifting weights until the start of spring training and missed most of the Grapefruit League schedule.
