The Braves’ pieced-together rotation needs to get plenty from its best starter, Julio Teheran. When they don’t, there can be nights like Saturday.
Teheran lasted just four innings and left with the Braves trailing 5-2 in a game that spiraled quickly into an ugly 12-2 loss to the Cardinals at Turner Field, leaving the home team winless after four games.
“From the first inning we didn’t make some plays behind Julio, and he just struggled,” said manager Fredi Gonzalez, who used five relievers and saw his defense make three errors and other mistakes that contributed to three unearned runs.
“There’s no pitching staff alive that survives when your starter only goes four innings. You start going into the long relievers, those middle relievers, and we didn’t catch the ball behind those guys, either, and you’re going to get a game like this,” Gonzalez said.
Teheran was charged with six hits, five runs (four earned) and four walks and needed 89 pitches (54 strikes) to get through four innings. He issued three walks in the first inning and got out of that jam, but the Cardinals didn’t let him off the hook again after that, scoring two, one and two runs in the next three innings.
In previous years he’s had trouble getting a grip on the ball sometimes in cool, dry, windy weather, and Gonzalez though that contributed to his issues Monday, noting also that Cardinals starter Carlos Martinez walked two of the first three batters in the opening inning.
Martinez settled into a groove soon after and pitched six strong innings (four hits, two runs, three walks). Meanwhile, Teheran appeared out of sorts throughout his four innings. His command was off and his fastball velocity was down.
“I don’t like to make excuses,” Teheran said. “I will say hard day that I had. I didn’t feel like I was feeling before. One of those nights that you pass through and you try to put it away and concentrate on the next one.”
It was 60 degrees at first pitch, and the “feels like” temperature was 52 by the second inning. Not a cold night, but there was a brisk breeze, and for whatever reason Teheran seems to have more problems than most pitchers in this type of weather.
“I don’t know if it was the weather or the grip; both (pitchers) had trouble in the first inning,” Gonzalez said. “Julio walks three guys in the first inning, Martinez walks a couple. I guess cold, windy, little dry, he had trouble with the grip. He battled for four innings, he really did. Right from the very beginning.”
Of the five Braves relievers used Friday, Arodys Vizcaino was the only one who didn’t give up at least one run. And he only recorded the final out of the ninth inning, after Jason Grilli started the inning and gave up two runs (one earned) and issued three walks.
Gonzalez used Grilli only because the veteran close hadn’t pitched since blowing a save in Monday’s season opener. Vizcaino, the other closer, also hadn’t pitched since the opener.
“We didn’t want to use Vizky, but we also didn’t want to run Grilli out there for 35 pitches,” Gonzalez said. “So we were able to use both and hopefully both (will be available to pitch Sunday). I know Vizky will be available, and we’ll check with Grilli.”
