WASHINGTON — Brandon Beachy struck out seven of the first 11 Washington Nationals batters Saturday, then pitched a fourth inning as if he were a Porsche speeding from smooth pavement onto a washboard road.
The Braves rookie gave up three runs in the fourth on three hits, two walks and two wild pitches. The rest of the afternoon was just details in a 4-1 Braves loss at Nationals Park, which cut the Braves’ wild-card lead to two games over St. Louis with four to play.
“Same story, isn’t it?” said Beachy (7-3), who is 0-1 with a 6.89 ERA in his past three starts while racking up 27 strikeouts in 15 2/3 innings but also issuing 10 walks. “All year I’ve been flirting on the edge, getting behind guys and throwing too many pitches. It’s really caught up to me on these last three starts.”
The game ended shortly after St. Louis’ ninth-inning comeback win against the Chicago Cubs, and reduced the Braves’ wild-card lead by a game while keeping their magic number to clinch at three. There are four games left in the regular season.
Any combination of Braves wins and Cardinals losses totaling three would give the Braves their second consecutive National League wild card. And combination totaling two would set up a one-game wild-card tiebreaker that would be played in St. Louis.
“We’ve got to win ballgames,” said manager Fredi Gonzalez, whose Braves are 9-14 in September and 5-9 in their past 14 games. “It’s nice to watch the scoreboard and do all that kind of stuff, but we’ve got to win our ballgames that are there in front of us.”
They trailed 4-0 before rookie Freddie Freeman hit his 21st home run leading off the fifth inning. That was the only extra-base hit among four hits the Braves mustered in six innings against Nationals right-hander Chien-Ming Wang, who walked none.
“It’s another day off the schedule, and there are four games left and we have a two-game lead,” Freeman said. “Obviously we were scoreboard watching. ... We have to take care of business and not worry about them.
“Everybody came in here with a positive attitude and thought we were going to put up some runs today, but it just didn’t happen.”
Wang drove in as many runs as the Braves when he singled with two out to cap the three-run fourth. It was the first hit of his career for Wang, who had been 0-for-32 before hitting Beachy’s 0-1 fastball up the first-base line and into the right-field corner.
“The fourth inning,” Gonzalez said. “A couple of walks there and give up a base hit to Wang, his first career hit. That’s the way it goes sometimes. But then [Beachy] came back, gave us two strong innings and kept us in the ballgame.
“We just didn’t get anything going offensively. We scored one run, got six hits. They did a nice job keeping us off balance.”
Relievers Tom Gorzelanny, Tyler Clippard and Drew Storen pitched a scoreless inning apiece for the Nationals, with Storen recording his 41st save.
The Braves had more than one runner on base in only one inning, the eighth, when Brooks Conrad drew a one-out walk and Michael Bourn followed with a single. It was also the only time they had a runner advance past first, not counting Freeman’s homer.
Then with runners on the corners and one out, Martin Prado batting and Chipper Jones on deck, Bourn was thrown out trying to steal second (replays appeared to show he was safe). Prado flied out to end the inning.
Gonzalez was asked about Bourn, the major-league steals leader, running in that situation.
“First-and-third, one out, and you know what? Create something,” Gonzalez said. “I know it’s not the tying run or the winning run, but I didn’t think it was a bad play at all. I know I didn’t think it was because I gave him the green light. Get him in scoring position, somebody bloop one in there and score some runs.
“This guy Clippard is pretty tough to score on. So maybe you get a guy in scoring position, get a bloop in and we get one or two runs and it’s a little different. And I haven’t seen the replay but [Bourn] though he was safe.”
