CHICAGO – Several things went differently Sunday when the team with baseball’s worst April record, the Braves, faced the team with the best April record, the Cubs, on the first day of May.
Julio Teheran pitched splendidly in a cold game on the road. The Cubs made a couple of crucial mistakes, upon which the Braves capitalized. And the Braves bullpen … well, not everything was different.
Atlanta’s bullpen blew a 3-0 lead, giving up two runs in the eighth inning and one in the ninth, but the Braves scored a run in the 10th inning for a 4-3 win and a split of a rain-shortened two-game series at Wrigley Field.
Nick Markakis’ sacrifice fly brought in the winning run after a pair of one-out singles from rookies Daniel Castro and Mallex Smith. Jason Grilli gave up a two-out walk but nothing more in the 10th inning for the save, after Arodys Vizcaino gave up the tying run in the ninth.
“It felt great to get that win,” said Smith, who had three hits in his last three at-bats including a single on well-excuted hit-and-run with one out in the 10th to put runners on the corners for Markakis. “We needed it. This is something we need to build off of. We need to keep winning.”
Teheran allowed just two hits and one walk with nine strikeouts in 109 pitches over seven scoreless innings, and the Braves (6-18) split a series with a Cubs team that won six of its first seven series and entered Sunday with a majors-best 17-5 record.
“Julio was tremendous,” said Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez, whose team is 2-2 on a trip that started in Boston and ends with a three-game series starting Monday against the power-hitting Mets, winners of eight straight before a loss Sunday. “I really didn’t even want to push him that long, because his last start he was 115 pitches. I was hoping for seven innings in 94-95 pitches (Sunday), but he was good, he carried his velocity to the last hitter he faced.”
Teheran has a 1.40 ERA in his past three starts and an 0-1 record to show for that stretch after Sunday’s no-decision. He has allowed one run in 14 innings over his past two starts against the Red Sox and Cubs. It was 44 degrees at the first pitch Sunday with a “feels like” temperature of 39, with wind blowing in, favorable to pitchers.
“I feel really good throwing out there, even though it was cold,” Teheran said. “I got control of the game the whole time. I was commanding all of my pitches and I think I did pretty good, like I did last time.”
Retiring 19 of the last 21 batters he faced Sunday, Teheran left with a 3-0 lead and stood to improve his record to 3-0 with a 3.11 ERA in six starts against the Cubs. But his potential win was erased by the ‘pen.
After Braves reliever Jim Johnson gave up two hits in the eighth inning, the Cubs scored on Jason Heyward’s groundout against left-hander Hunter Cervenka and Kris Bryant’s RBI single off Vizcaino.
Vizcaino came back for the ninth and walked the leadoff hitter, Ben Zobrist, then sent him to third base on an errant pickoff attempt. Addison Russell singled in the tying run.
Cubs veteran John Lackey was good – eight innings, three hits, three runs, three walks – but Teheran was better.
Kelly Johnson’s leadoff double in the fifth was the first hit off Lackey. Johnson advanced on a Tyler Flowers groundout and scored on Jace Peterson’s sacrifice fly for a 1-0 lead.
They pushed the lead to 3-0 with two runs in the sixth inning, when the Braves took advantage of a botched double-play grounder and some alert base running by Adonis Garcia.
“We snuck a couple of runs on the possible double play,” Gonzalez said. “But you know what? We’ll take it. And then we did a nice job of, early in the game, we got ‘em over, got ‘em in…. I’m pleased with our situational hitting today.”
Mallex Smith, batting ninth behind Teheran, led off the sixth inning with a single. Markakis walked and both runners advanced on Erick Aybar’s sacrifice. The Cubs intentionally walked Freddie Freeman with first base open, and Garcia hit into a potential inning-ending double play botched by shortstop Addison Russell, who dropped it and got nothing.
One run scored on that play, and another when Johnson followed by grounding into a double play. Garcia initially ducked to avoid a tag on the way to second base, which eliminated the force after the Cubs threw to first base for the first out.
When they returned to Garcia and got him out in a rundown, Markakis scored from third base before the third out was recorded, pushing the Braves’ lead to 3-0.
