The Braves used the long ball to make short work of the Nationals on Wednesday night, beating them 6-2 to make way for the Phillies.
The Braves launched a season-high four home runs, including a pair from Adam LaRoche, to complete the two-game sweep over the pesky Nationals.
The Braves will ride a five-game winning streak into the weekend series against the Phillies at Turner Field starting Friday. They are tied with the Marlins for second place, 4-1/2 games behind Philadelphia.
“It’s good to get a little momentum,” LaRoche said. “If we’d have lost these two, we’d have had to dig pretty deep this weekend.”
Reliever Mike Gonzalez punctuated the victory with a spectacular catch in self-defense on a line drive in the ninth inning.
“I saw it coming right at my teeth,” Gonzalez said. “I just had to put my glove up and defend myself there and just happened to run into it. It’s crazy. That’s why I say that prayer right before I go out there. I’m just happy to be able to be speaking right now.”
Not much was going to ruin the night or the series for the Braves, who outscored the Nationals 14-3 in two games while spoiling their eight-game winning streak.
The Braves moved to 5-0 against the Nationals at Turner Field this season and 7-4 overall.
“It was kind of a scary two games because they were coming in the hottest team in baseball,” said Derek Lowe, who gave up two runs in seven innings. “We all know who we’re playing this weekend. Sometimes it’s easy to say ‘Hey, we’ll get ’em this weekend.’ Guys didn’t do that. We showed up. It was two hard-fought ones.”
Garret Anderson and Martin Prado each homered as well, and the Braves tacked on a pair of insurance runs in the eighth on bases-loaded walks by LaRoche and Greg Norton.
Braves manager Bobby Cox had given LaRoche the first game of this series off to get Omar Infante in the lineup and let LaRoche have a day off when he wasn’t either being traded or traveling. That’s something LaRoche did twice in a week going from Pittsburgh to Boston to Atlanta.
LaRoche welcomed himself back to the lineup with his 11th career multi-home run game and his 15th and 16th home runs of the year.
He and Anderson each his solo shots off rookie Craig Stammen in the second inning, then LaRoche launched the game-winner off reliever Jorge Sosa in the seventh.
In his 10 games back with the Braves, LaRoche has hit .342 (13-for-38) with three home runs and seven RBIs.
“Stepping back in, I don’t feel any pressure to impress Bobby or the front office or my new teammates,” LaRoche said. “I’ve been around these guys long enough where I can go out and play and play my game.”
His second home run put the Braves up 3-2 and made a winner out of Lowe, now 12-7, who had allowed the tying run in the top of the seventh.
Lowe had cruised through six innings before Elijah Dukes’ two-out double threw him off course in the seventh. Ronnie Belliard tied the game 2-2 on a single, before Lowe escaped on a bases loaded groundout.
“I completely lost control of the inning,” Lowe said. “I kept fighting with myself and telling yourself that you’re all right, [then you] start panicking there after a while. It was pretty ugly there for a couple of batters.”
Lowe is 5-0 in his past seven starts. The Braves’ bullpen blew a lead in Los Angeles in his previoius outing but was able to secure this one with good work by Peter Moylan in the eighth and Gonzalez in the ninth.
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