BOSTON – Their new second baseman Tommy La Stella had two hits in his major league debut, but it wasn't enough to shake the Braves out of their funk as the Red Sox continued a mini resurgence at the expense of Atlanta with a 4-0 win in the first of a two-game set Wednesday at Fenway Park.
After snapping a 10-game losing skid when the Braves blew a 6-1 lead Monday in Atlanta, the Red Sox have now won three in three days against the Braves in a home-and-home series that ends Thursday. The Braves stranded 10 runners and left the bases loaded in the seventh inning with the score 3-0.
“We got nine hits, left all kinds of people on base,” said manager Fredi Gonzalez, whose Braves have averaged under 3.2 runs per game while dropping 15 of 26 since a 17-7 start to the season. “We just couldn’t get that next hit, whether it was a bloop single or a ball going through the infield – we just couldn’t get that next one.”
After failing to score when they loaded the bases with none out in the second inning of Tuesday’s 6-3 loss in Atlanta, the Braves loaded them with two out in the Wednesday on a pair of seventh-inning singles by La Stella and Ramiro Pena against Red Sox starter John Lackey and a two-out walk by B.J. Upton against left-hander Chris Capuano.
The Braves had potential tying runs on base and the guy they wanted at the plate, Freddie Freeman, albeit against a lefty who’s been tough on them for years. Freeman came in as the major league leader with a .500 average (7-for-14) with runners in scoring position and two outs before Wednesday, but he was just 1-for-6 with the bases loaded.
Something had to give, and it wasn’t what the Braves hoped it would be: Freeman grounded out to end the inning. He’s now 1-for-7 with bases loaded and the Braves are 5-for-33 (.152), ranking among the majors’ bottom four in that category.
“We had some people in the right situations,” Gonzalez said. “Just couldn’t break through.”
Braves starter Gavin Floyd (0-2) knows that feeling by now. He threw 106 pitches in a season-low five innings and gave up six hits and two runs (one earned) with three walks while lowering his ERA to 2.37. It was also his first loss and lowest innings total in nine starts (7-1) against Boston, despite lowering his career ERA against them to 2.67 ERA.
Braves starter-turned-reliever Alex Wood also gave up five hits, two runs and two walks in 2 2/3 innings.
Just being healthy after coming back from Tommy John elbow surgery isn’t enough to satisfy Floyd.
“I want to win,” the veteran said. “When I’m pitching I want our team to win, and if we don’t win I’m as disappointed as anybody else. Obviously I feel fine, I feel good (physically), but I just wish we could have won today….
Errors and miscommunication contributed to Floyd’s hefty pitch count and both runs the Red Sox got against him.
“You’ve just got to look past those things, when those things happen you try to hope that things turn around and you just try to keep on battling out there and try to keep us in the game,” Floyd said. “Seemed like today just a couple of things didn’t go our way. Just the way it’s been.”
In four of Floyd’s five starts, his earned-run totals were 1, 1, 2, 2.
For most of the night the Braves mounted little in the way of offensive threats against Lackey (6-3), who gave up eight hits and no walks with nine strikeouts in 6-1/3 innings.
Freeman doubled with two out in the first inning and Justin Upton struck out to strand him. That was the only time the Braves had a runner reach second until the fifth, when La Stella singled with one out in his second major league plate appearance and Heyward singled with two out.
In four plate appearances, La Stella had two singles, grounded out and flied out.
“It was everything I thought it was going to be,” said La Stella, who had his parents, brother and sister all in attendance. “To be out there in that environment, in that atmosphere at Fenway, was a dream come true. It’s a cliché but there really is no other way to describe it. Obviously it would have been a lot better if we had won.”
La Stella and backup shortstop Ramiro Pena were the only Braves with two hits and also the only ones in the lineup who didn’t strike out. Braves batters struck out 11 times, and four struck out twice apiece.
“Tommy was great,” Gonzalez said. “He did right what we expected him to, got a couple of hits, put the ball in play, got a good at-bat against a lefty (Craig Breslow) there at the end. He did a nice job. Made a nice turn on a double play. You couldn’t ask for anything more out of him, especially in a first major league game, here in Boston facing the Red Sox.”
With runners on first and second in the fifth inning, B.J. Upton struck out on three pitches to end the fifth inning, his second of the game and majors-leading 63rd strikeout this season.
Lackey, who had struck out more than six batters in two of 10 starts before Wednesday, when he had eight through five innings.
The Braves had another scoring opportunity in the sixth when Justin Upton hit a one-out double high off the Green Monster outfield wall where it ends in the left-center power alley. He was still there when the inning ended, after Evan Gattis grounded out to third and Ryan Doumit flied out.
La Stella was involved in a couple of plays he’d probably just as soon forget in the third inning. Xander Bogaerts’ pop fly to shallow center with one out went for a double when it landed unfettered within 10 feet of La Stella, who had run out toward it and pulled up at about the same time enter fielder B.J. Upton pulled up coming from the other direction.
“(Floyd) gives up two runs,” Gonzalez said, “one was an unearned run and the other after a flyball miscommunication with a young kid playing second base for the first time in a major league stadium. But (Floyd) grinded out some innings, a hundred-plus pitches in five innings – he really battled to keep us in that position.”
La Stella said, “I don’t think it was a familiarity issue as much as it was the ball off the bat, me and Ramiro (Pena) both thought it was way into center field. The wind just knocked it straight back down. I was going back, I didn’t see it once it got up, and B.J. didn’t see it once it got up either. Just a miscommunication.”
One out later, David Ortiz hit a sharp grounder to La Stella, playing about 30 feet into right field in the defensive shift against the dead-pull hitter. La Stella slipped as he knocked the ball down and then got up from his knees and made a one-hop throw to Freeman that Ortiz barely beat out for a single. A.J. Pierzynski followed with a two-out RBI single that pushed the lead to 2-0, a run earned in name only.
The Red Sox have taken advantage of broken-bat and bloop hits and also several Braves mistakes while winning the first three games of this four-game home-and-home series between the teams, which wraps up Thursday night at Fenway Park.
They jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the second inning Wednesday after Jonny Gomes led off with a chopped single to Pena, whose throw to first sailed wide of Freeman allowing Gomes to advance to second. A wild pitch moved Gomes to third with none out, and a Grady Sizemore walk was followed by Daniel Nava’s double-play grounder with Gomes scoring.
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