The Washington Nationals walked Chipper Jones to get to Brian McCann, and the Braves catcher made them pay.
McCann's walkoff single with one out in the 10th inning gave the Braves a 6-5, come-from-way-behind win Thursday night at Turner Field. He drove in Martin Prado, whose seventh-inning grand slam had erased a 5-1 deficit.
“They let us hang around, and we came back and got one,” said manager Fredi Gonzalez, whose Braves avoided a sweep and got a needed lift before their weekend home series with the National League East-leading Phillies that starts Friday. "After losing one last night, it’s good to see."
The Braves blew a 3-1 ninth-inning lead in an 11-inning loss Wednesday.
“We stole one tonight, after we pretty much got our butts kicked for the better part of three games," said Jones, who was walked intentionally by Nationals left-hander Doug Slaten with Prado on second base and one out.
"You have to do that," McCann said of the strategy. "You set up a double play and have lefty on lefty. It was the right move. I mean, it’s Chipper Jones.”
Jones had homered in the third inning and led the Braves with 26 RBIs, while McCann led the NL with a .500 average with runners in scoring position.
"I think it’s a situation where you’ve got to pick your poison," Gonzalez said.
McCann came through with pulled single to right field, touching off a celebration as teammates stormed from the dugout before McCann reached first base.
“Yeah, I looked and saw [Eric] Hinske running with me," McCann said, laughing. "I should have stopped."
The Braves had the last laugh -- or at least a sigh of relief -- on a night when they had looked pretty much dead in the water until the seventh inning. Three innings later, they were ecstatic and Eddie Money's "Shakin'" -- the team's unofficial slumpbuster song -- was blaring over the stadium PA.
“That’s what this team is about, fighting back until the last moment," said Prado, who led off the 10th with a walk and advanced on Nate McLouth's sacrifice bunt. "That’s why I give so much credit to my teammates, because they’re always battling.
"Huge [win]. We knew that we’ve got Philly coming in this weekend and we’ve got to get some confidence back. This gives us confidence to come in tomorrow and battle against them.”
Nationals starter Jordan Zimmermann had a career-high 11 strikeouts and was cruising through the Braves' lineup until the seventh inning, when he was replaced after a one-out walk by Freddie Freeman and single by Alex Gonzalez.
Pinch-hitter Brooks Conrad drew a walk against lefty reliever Sean Burnett to load the bases for Prado, whose 10-pitch at-bat included five foul balls before he smashed a full-count pitch to the bleachers in left-center field.
It was his second grand slam and the first for the Braves this season.
“He’s probably the last person, as a pitcher, that you want to get into a battle with and let him see every pitch you’ve got," McCann said of Prado. "In my opinion, he’s one of the best hitters in the game.”
Prado said he wanted to gauge Burnett's best pitch before he swung at anything.
“I was hoping to take one strike to see if he’s got the sinker working,” he said. “You’ve got to take care of the sinker, and he’s got a pretty good change-up. By the time I got 3-2, I was ‘OK, this is it.’
"I was looking for something down the middle just to put it in play and I got the pitch down the middle [that] I could hit it solid.”
With one swing, he changed a lot about the night and the series.
“Well, that’s what you get out of a .300 hitter," Jones said of Prado. "That guy’s a quality at-bat every time he walks up there. That’s exactly what you expect out of somebody at his level, with the game on the line.
"That guy [Burnett] doesn’t make very many mistakes. Martin capitalized in a big way, and it was without a doubt the biggest swing of the season for us right now.”
The momentum that the Braves had built during a four-game sweep of the Milwaukee Brewers and a series win at Philadelphia had been all but obliterated by the Nationals during two tough losses Tuesday and Wednesday.
But just when it looked as if the Braves would slump into their weekend series, Prado delivered a mighty blow that re-energized the dugout and a small crowd of 19,758.
Without their best hitter — Ryan Zimmerman's on the disabled list — the Nationals still were poised to sweep the Braves. Going back to the last series of the 2009 season, the Nationals were 17-10 against the Braves before Thursday.
Another Zimmermann — this one with two n’s and many K's — had the Braves under his thumb for much of Thursday night.
Jordan Zimmermann had already surpassed his previous career-high nine strikeouts after five innings.
The right-hander struck out three in first inning, all looking at third strikes, including Eric Hinske with the bases loaded for the third out. For much of the night, it looked like the Braves would not have another scoring opportunity.
From the second through fifth innings, the only Brave to reach base was Jones, who trotted around the bases on a two-out homer in the third inning. Zimmermann struck out seven of the other 12 batters he faced in that four-inning stretch.
McLouth led off the sixth with a single, but Zimmermann retired the next three.
But in the seventh, after Freeman drew a walk and Gonzalez hit a bloop single, Zimmermann was replaced with his pitch count at a modest 103.
“I still say the biggest play in the game -- you can say what you want about the home runs and the game-winning hit by Mac, but that guy shook [off his catcher] three times to get to a slider, 3-and-1 on Freddie Freeman, in a 5-1 game with nobody on," Jones said, "and that started everything.
"And the next thing you know, two batters later he’s out of the game and we’ve got something going. Momentum can turn on a dime in this game, and it definitely did tonight.”
Just like that, the Braves were back in it and starter Derek Lowe was off the hook, after giving up five runs, five hits and three walks in six innings.
Braves pitchers had 14 quality starts during the team’s 12-4 run before facing Washington. They got none in three nights against the Nationals, with Tommy Hanson coming closest when he allowed one run in 5-2/3 innings Tuesday.
After taking a no-hitter to the seventh inning Friday at Philadelphia, Lowe gave up a bunt single to the first batter he faced Thursday, Roger Bernadina.
He gave up three runs on long balls --aa two-run homer by Danny Espinosa in the second and a solo shot by 39-and-still-catching Ivan Rodriguez in the sixth.
He said the blister that thwarted his no-hit bid wasn't a problem Thursday.
“Not at all," he said. "Just bad location on some pitches. I made two mistakes and they were two homers. But we found a way to win.
"This team [Washington] plays us unbelievably tough. I don’t know what it is. They pitch extremely well, they hit…. I mean, we’ve just got to figure it out."
