SAN DIEGO – If there were any remaining questions as to whether Mike Minor's season had reached a crisis point, they were answered Friday. Sound the alarms.
The Braves left-hander gave up five runs and two more homers in the first three innings of a 10-1 loss to the Padres in a series opener at Petco Park, in which the Braves were out-hit 20-4 by the lowest-scoring, worst-hitting team in baseball.
It was the fourth loss in as many games for the Braves at the halfway point of an eight-game trip that began with them getting swept at Dodger Stadium in three hard-fought games that were the antithesis of Friday’s dispiriting defeat.
“A couple of things that went on … I think everybody is upset with the way we played,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. “I think tomorrow I’ll circle around and talk to some of the guys that we need to talk to.
“It’s hard to get on the team after the series we played against the Dodgers. We lost three games, let’s not forget that, but it was some good, hard baseball. The intensity was there. So for you to come in after a game like this tonight that wasn’t well played, and yell and scream, I don’t think it was the right time,” Gonzalez said.
Those fans who stayed up to watch back home probably did plenty of yelling and screaming.
Minor (4-7) stuck around for five innings and was charged with nine hits, five runs and two walks with one strikeout. He is 2-3 with a 7.33 ERA in his past 10 starts while allowing 85 hits, 17 walks and 12 homers in 54 innings. His ERA is up to 5.42, and the Braves might consider skipping his next start or even whether he shoulder remain in the rotation.
“It’s a business, I understand that,” Minor said. “And we’re in a pennant race. It’s winding down, the last third of the season. Can’t be giving away games with me going out there and pitching like that.”
Asked what he thought would be the best solution to help him get back on track, Minor said, “I don’t know the answer. If I knew I’d go back out there and pitch better.”
Gonzalez said, “There’s a lot of stuff that we need to sit down and sort through, talk about. We’ve got a couple of days off coming up, Monday and Thursday off next week…. I have other stuff on my mind right now.”
Braves hitters fared even worse against 13-game loser Eric Stults than against Dodgers aces Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke the previous two nights. They managed just two hits, one (unearned) run and four walks in 6 1/3 innings against Stults (4-13), a left-hander who had been 1-10 with a 5.32 ERA in his previous 13 starts.
The Braves are 9-14 in their past 23 games and have scored three runs or fewer in 13 of them, including two or fewer runs in eight of the past 12.
“He threw pitches to hit tonight and we just didn’t hit them,” said first baseman Freddie Freeman, among the three Braves at the top of the order who went 0-for-4 apiece. “I was getting pitches right down the middle and I’m rolling them over. I can’t explain it. We need to come out here and swing the bats better against (Padres pitcher Ian) Kennedy tomorrow.”
If the night hadn’t been enough of unmitigated debacle, there was an ugly scene in the three-run Padres seventh inning, when rookie reliever David Hale gestured twice in a disrespectful manner toward head trainer Jeff Porter, telling him to stay in the dugout when Porter was on the way out to check on Hale after a line drive hit the back of his foot.
“My emotions were running high,” said Hale, who gave up six hits and three runs and recorded two outs. “I pride myself on treating people the right way and being appreciative of what they do for me. I’m more disappointed with the way I acted toward Mr. Porter, Jeff Porter. That was completely the wrong thing to do.
“But we talked to each other, and we love each other. That’s all behind us. I apologized to him.”
Gonzalez went to the mound with Porter. The manager got in Hale’s face and let him know how he felt about the gesture.
“That bothered me,” Gonzalez said. “I know it’s competitive, frustration, getting hurt, anger, whatever word you want to use. But that’s not the right actions. Especially towards a guy who wants to help him. I’m sure Jeff and David talked, and so, it’s over with. I apologize that it got on television. But what are you going to do? It is what it is, and we’ll just go forward.”
Still, nothing could overshadow the poor performance of Minor, whose has allowed 127 hits and 18 home runs in 98 innings. The left-hander’s troubling season is becoming more so with almost every start.
“It’s been frustrating all year,” Minor said. “’m just trying to battle. Tonight (pitching coach) Roger (McDowell) came out there and asked me, ‘Are you going to battle through this?’ And I said, yeah, I’m not giving up. But it’s going to be week to week, I guess. I just can’t really get a rhythm.”
When Tommy Medica, who had four homers before Friday, hit a pair of long two-run homers off Minor in the first and third innings, it made it 12 homers he’d allowed in a span of 49 innings over 10 starts. Medica went 3-for-3 against Minor and 5-for-5 in the game.
“(Giving up home runs) doesn’t bother me as long as long as I make pretty good pitches all game long and guys aren’t on base,” Minor said. “I’d rather go after guys than give up walks and pitch around them. I’d rather just go after them and make them earn it. But tonight it was one of those things where guys were on (base). They’d kind of inside-out some balls and got on base, and then Tommy was locked in.”
The Braves, on the other hand, were not locked in. After his leadoff single in the fifth inning, Medica sprinted to third base with one out while Braves infielders and Minor had their minds elsewhere. Catcher Gerald Laird pointed toward third base when Medica took off, but Minor didn’t notice or respond to Laird’s gesture until it was too late to even make a throw.
Medica was credited with just his second stolen base of the season.
“We got caught not paying attention,” Gonzalez said. “We had a couple of infielders who had their backs turned to the runner, and he took advantage of it.”
While it’s easy to speculate that Minor’s poor season stems from his missing most of spring training with shoulder tendinitis that landed him on the disabled list in April, his struggles actually began late last season.
After going 21-9 with a 2.79 ERA and 23 home runs allowed 42 starts from June 30, 2012, through Aug. 25, 2013, Minor is 4-11 with a 5.06 ERA and 25 homers allowed in 23 starts since then.
Before Friday, Medica had four homers all season in 145 at-bats. He had a .219 average with one homer in 64 at-bats at Petco Park. He had a .225 average with one homer and 27 strikeouts in 102 at-bats since May 30.
But against Minor, he looked like an All-Star. He gave the Padres a 2-0 lead with his two-out homer in the first inning, and in the third inning they pushed the margin to 5-0 when Jedd Gyorko doubled home a run with one out and Medica followed two pitches later with his second souvenir for the folks in the left-field bleachers.
While Minor was getting knocked around, Braves hitters were making Stults look like a 13-game winner rather than a 13-game loser.
The Braves could be excused for mustering totals of five runs and three extra-base hits over two games Wednesday and Thursday in Los Angeles, when they were dominated by Kershaw and Greinke. But on Friday they couldn’t put together anything against Stults, who gave up six runs and six hits in six innings of a loss to the Braves five days earlier in Atlanta.
“It’s one of those games,” Freeman said. “Everything they hit found a hole. We never seemed to be close to it. We’d play a little shift, play the hole, they’d hit a ball down the line. We play the line, they hit a ball in the hole. Tommy (La Stella) is playing a shift (up the middle) on Tommy Medica and he hits two grounders to the right side. Will Venable was looping balls in in front of our outfielders. It was just one of those things.
“And we just didn’t come out and hit the ball today. We were able to hit him last week, we just didn’t hit him this week.”
Why such a struggle for Braves hitters Friday?
“I can’t answer that question, I’m baffled myself,” Freeman said.
