The Braves enjoyed first place in the National League East for 27 days in a 28-day stretch before losing to the Mets on Wednesday and seeing the perennial division-leading Nationals move atop the standings.
Then the Nationals came to Atlanta for a four-game series that started Thursday night and the Braves took back the division lead with a 4-2 win at SunTrust Park, getting another strong performance from starter Sean Newcomb and not waiting until the late innings to score some runs.
The Braves (33-23) scored two runs in the second and took the lead for good with a run in the third on hits by Ozzie Albies and Freddie Freeman against Nationals starter Tanner Roark, who allowed more than three runs for only the second time in his past 13 starts against Atlanta.
They moved a half-game ahead of the Nationals (32-23).
The game began inauspiciously for Newcomb (6-1), who threw seven balls before throwing a strike and walked the first two batters, Trea Turner and Bryce Harper. After a double-steal, Anthony Rendon’s sacrifice fly gave the Nationals a quick 1-0 lead.
But after those two opening walks, Newcomb retired six of the next seven batters and 21 of the last 25 he faced. The big left-hander allowed four hits, two runs and two walks with two strikeouts in seven innings, improving to 6-0 with a 2.16 ERA in 10 starts since losing to the Nationals in his season debut.
Newcomb finished 5-0 with a 1.54 ERA in six May starts and extended his homerless streak to 36 innings.
The Braves scored twice in the second inning to take a 2-1 lead. They got doubles from Nick Markakis and Preston Tucker (RBI), two walks and a run-scoring ground-out by Newcomb, who hustled to beat the relay throw to first base and avoid a would-be inning-ending double play.
Roark, who had issued just eight walks in his previous six starts, walked four in the first five innings Thursday and finished with five walks (two intentional) to go with seven hits and four runs allowed in 6 2/3 innings.
After the Nationals scored a trying run in the third on a pair of singles, the Braves took the lead for good, 3-2, in the bottom of the inning when Albies hit a leadoff single and scored when Freeman doubled to right field and Harper’s throw skipped off the defender’s glove at second base as he tried to throw out Freeman.
Newcomb was 0-2 with a 9.72 ERA in two previous career starts against the Nationals including his season debut April 2, when he gave up five hits including a Harper homer, six runs (five earned) and four walks in 4 1/3 innings of an 8-1 loss.
He’s allowed just two homers in 10 starts since then. Newcomb was 4-0 with a 0.36 ERA in a four-start stretch in which he allowed just one run in 25 innings before his last start Saturday at Boston, where he gave up six hits, three runs and four walks in just three innings in a loss to the Red Sox in his first game at Fenway Park, the ballpark he went to frequently as a kid growing up in nearby Middleboro, Mass.
But any thoughts of a hangover from that homecoming carrying over into Thursday ended after he got through that first inning. Newcomb gave up a tying run in the third on a pair of singles, but beginning with Mark Reynolds’ pop-out for the second out of the third inning he retired 14 of the last 15 batters he faced, with only Rendon’s leadoff double in the sixth inning breaking up that sequence.
