After getting walloped in Friday's series opener and dropping five of their past seven games, the road-weary Braves could have used Kris Medlen in never-lose mode Saturday against the Tigers.
He was far from it. And they lost again.
Medlen gave up a career-high 10 hits and five runs in 5-1/3 innings, and Detroit tacked on two runs in the eighth to secure a 7-4 win against the Braves at Comerica Park.
"It's a difficult lineup to get through when you have your 'A' game, and I obviously did not," said Medlen (1-3), who gave up two-run homers to Jhonny Peralta in the first inning and former Brave Omar Infante in the fourth.
“Every pitcher, every hitter is going to get their (rear) kicked at some point this year, and hopefully this was my day today to get mine kicked a little bit. I tried to go out there and battle, but they did some damage with a couple of pitches.”
Justin Upton hit his majors-leading 12th home run for the Braves in the eighth inning, cutting the Tigers’ lead to 5-4. But usually reliable rookie left-hander Luis Avilan was charged with two runs in the bottom of the inning, when he faced four batters and gave up two doubles and a walk.
The Braves have lost seven of 10 games since their 12-1 start, including six of nine on a three-city trip that ends Sunday night with a nationally televised game on ESPN.
"This has been a long road trip," said Upton, whose homer came with nobody on base, making it 11 out of 12 homers with bases empty for the Braves slugger. "It's starting to weigh on us a little bit, I think. We've got to find it somewhere deep down where we can get this next one and salvage the road trip and get back home."
Sunday’s game will be the 16th road game in an 18-game stretch for the Braves. They were a perfect 6-0 on their first trip to Miami and Washington, but have struggled mightily for much of this trek to Pittsburgh, Colorado and Detroit, posting a .222 team batting average and 5.32 ERA in the past eight games and scoring two or fewer runs in half of them.
Scoring runs wasn’t a problem Saturday as much as preventing them.
Yes, they mustered just five hits and a modest three runs in 6-1/3 innings against Tigers starter Rick Porcello (1-2), who entered with an 11.08 ERA and .383 opponents’ average and had given up nine hits and nine runs without making it out of the first inning of his last start.
The three-run third against Porcello gave the Braves a 3-2 lead, and in the past when that would’ve been practically a guaranteed win with Medlen on the mound.
The Braves had a major league-record 23 consecutive wins in games he started until losing to Philadelphia in his first start this season. They’ve lost both his starts on this trip. Medlen gave up three runs in six innings Sunday at Pittsburgh and had one of the worst games against Detroit.
He threw 108 pitches (73 strikes) in 5-1/3 innings, walking two and hitting a batter in addition to the 10 hits. He matched his career high with five runs allowed for the third time, including major league debut against Colorado on May 21, 2009.
He was ahead in the count on both home runs: Peralta homered on Medlen's 0-1 curveball in the second inning, and Infante homered on an 0-2 fastball with two out in the fourth.
“A couple of the balls were just up in the strike zone a little bit,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. “It’s a good hitting club. You can’t do that. They don’t give away at-bats.”
Medlen felt good physically but didn’t have command of his fastball and couldn’t put away hitters when he got ahead.
“The damage was done on two pitches,” he said. “For me to be successful I need to be able to pitch to both sides of the plate, and I could not get glove-side…. I can’t just try to sink lefties away, because they’re going to be diving out. Same with the righties — I was trying to (throw outside) fastballs, and four-seamers and two-seamers were running back over.”
The Tigers’ other run against Medlen came in the third inning when Miguel Cabrera hit a one-out grounder that shortstop Andrelton Simmons made a terrific play on. But when he shoveled the ball from his glove to try to start an inning-ending double play, second baseman Dan Uggla tried to catch it bare-handed and dropped it, letting in a run.
