Home runs have undermined Mike Minor on many occasions in a disappointing season for the Braves left-hander, but it was small stuff that caused the most problems for him Tuesday. That and another weak game by Atlanta hitters.
Minor showed signs of progress in his first start since Aug. 1, but a couple of mistake pitches, some bloop hits and poor offensive support doomed the Braves and gave the Dodgers a 4-2 win Turner Field, Atlanta’s 11th loss in 13 games including five in as many games against the Dodgers.
The Braves, who’ve scored two runs or fewer in eight of their past 12 games, fell back to five games behind National League East leader Washington and are now just one game ahead of third-place Miami. Nevertheless, center fielder B.J. Upton said he’s seen reasons to believe the Braves can wake up their offense and put together a good run.
“We’re always a couple of hits away from winning the ballgame,” said Upton, whose fourth-inning solo homer gave the Braves a short-lived 2-1 lead. “It just seems like time after time the (opposing pitcher) makes some good pitches and gets out of it. But that’s just the way it’s rolling. It can’t happen that way all year. There’s a lot of baseball left to be played.”
“I know a lot of people are looking at the Nationals in front of us, but we still play those guys a lot, and there’s still a lot of baseball to be played. So there’s no need to panic.”
The Dodgers’ first three runs scored on two bloop hits and a groundout, and Minor (4-8) gave up two runs in the fifth inning after the Braves had taken a 2-1 lead in the fourth.
Minor was charged with eight hits, three runs and one walk with seven strikeouts in 6 2/3 innings, and also hit Justin Turner with an 0-1 fastball with one out in the second inning. Turner ended up scoring the first run of the game after advancing on a Juan Uribe single and racing home on a two-out bloop single to right field by No. 8 hitter Barney.
“We’ve got to give a lot of credit to Mike and (pitching coach) Roger (McDowell) with the way his outing was today,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez, who said he could still appreciate the pitcher’s performance despite another team loss. “He was really, really good. A couple of balls were hit right out of the reach of infielders that cost him some runs. But he was really, really good and I hope that continues. He pounded the strike zone with his fastball and threw a couple nice breaking pitches off that.”
The Dodgers tacked on a ninth-inning insurance run after an error by Braves shortstop Emilio Bonifacio – his second in as many nights – not only let Darwin Barney reach base but get to second, and he scored one out later on a wild-pitch by David Hale.
It was another unsightly late-game inning for the Braves, after a three-run debacle in the eighth inning of Monday’s 6-2 series-opening loss.
The Braves are 0-5 against the Dodgers in the past two weeks, and have scored a total of seven runs in the last four of those games. They are 15-17 in their past 32 games at Turner Field, and scored two runs or fewer in 11 of the last 25 of those.
“That’s the nature of the game sometimes, and when you have to fight to get that extra out, it works in their favor more times than not,” Braves right fielder Jason Heyward said. “They didn’t get big hits tonight; Mike threw well for us. But it was one of those games where some balls fell in and they were able to get the extra run (in the ninth), that was huge.”
Minor had been 2-3 with a 7.33 ERA in his previous 10 starts while allowing 12 homers in 54 innings, including six homers allowed in his past four home starts. He had an 8.71 ERA and .400 opponents’ average in his last four starts before the Braves had him take a proverbial time out to rest, regroup and try to come back to finish the season strong.
“I changed some things mechanically and with some grips,” said Minor, who was pleased with his outing and came away with some confidence restored. “I felt like my stuff was breaking better. I was more on the corner of the plate and not the middle.”
His costly mistakes included hitting Turner with a pitch when ahead in the count, and surrendering a hit to pitcher Dan Haren on a curveball when ahead in the count 1-2 in the two-run fifth, when the Braves needed a shutdown inning from their pitcher after taking a lead in the fourth.
“(Hitting Turner) was bad,” he said. “It just got away from me. I tried to go in and I don’t even know what happened. I kind of just threw the pitch and it was up and in…. They hit some balls hard and then there were some that blooped in. I felt like the ones that blooped in were the ones they scored on.”
Upton’s first-pitch homer with two out in the fourth had put the Braves ahead 2-1 and made him 11-for-37 with six homers in his career against Haren. It was Upton’s ninth homer and second in his four starts on the homestand, the other coming against Stephen Strasburg on Friday. Upton homered on a Strasburg curveball and Haren’s first-pitch splitter.
Haren (10-9) gave up six hits and two runs in six innings, with one walk and seven strikeouts. He won his second consecutive start since posting a 10.03 ERA during a five-start losing streak.
After Heyward’s one-out single in the sixth, Haren struck out the next two batters, Evan Gattis and Chris Johnson. Braves hitters struck out 12 times in all, and Freddie Freeman grounded into a double play after Tommy La Stella reached on an error to start the eighth inning.
The Dodgers’ fifth inning was jump-started by Haren’s one-out single, the latest in a too-frequent occurrence for the Braves: allowing hits by opposing pitchers. Julio Teheran gave up two hits to Dodgers starter Kevin Correia in the series opener.
Carl Crawford followed Haren with a double before Yasiel Puig’s groundout drove in the tying run. One out later, Matt Kemp’s single on a pop fly to shallow right gave the Dodgers a 3-2 lead.
Shallow right field has been a problematic area for Braves defenders La Stella and Heyward a couple of times in the past two weeks. Second baseman La Stella tried to race back to catch Kemp’s fly ball, but couldn’t haul it in.
The lead had changed hands just that quickly.
The Braves trailed 1-0 before capitalizing on center fielder Puig’s famous aggressiveness to score the tying run in the third inning. La Stella hit a one-out single and scored on Justin Upton two-out bloop to shallow center, when Puig charged in and made a diving catch attempt. The ball landed a foot in front of his glove and caromed away from him.
