Alex Wood took a three-hit shutout and a 2-0 lead to the eighth inning Wednesday, and came away with no decision in a 3-2 loss. And so, the second-year Braves pitcher’s hard luck continued.
He has only two wins (2-1) in his past five starts despite a 1.89 ERA and .200 opponents’ average in that span, with two or fewer earned runs allowed in six or more innings in every game. Wood has the fifth-lowest run support among NL qualifiers at 3.3 runs per nine innings pitched.
In 11 starts since moving back into the rotation in late June, he has a 2.71 ERA, nine quality starts, and seven starts in which he allowed two or fewer earned runs in six or more innings. Yet he only has a 4-3 record in that period, and the Braves scored two or fewer runs while he was in the game in seven of those 11 starts.
The Braves scored a total of four runs in the 20 innings that he was in the game in his three non-wins over his past five starts. In that period he got a loss and a no-decision in games in which he allowed one earned run in six innings and one earned run in seven innings.
For the season, Wood has a 2.83 ERA in 18 starts, with 105 strikeouts and 31 walks in 114 2/3 innings, yet only a 6-8 record as a starter.
“He’s been terrific,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said Thursday. “And I talked to him a little bit today and he goes, ‘Skipper, I want the ball in the eighth inning. I want it. I want to be that elite type pitcher in the major leagues.’ So I think it was a good learning experience for him. Good to keep running him out there. To me, running him back out in the eighth inning (Wednesday) was a no-brainer. Two starts prior to that he went 7 2/3 – we pushed him, to 124 pitches. But he wants that.
“He’s got that mentality to be a top-tier pitcher in the major leagues, and to be in that category you’ve got to go out and go eight innings, you’ve got to go out and throw complete games. And he wants to do it.”
The left-hander from the University of Georgia never makes excuses and never blames anyone but himself when a game goes awry. Late Wednesday, he admonished himself for walking leadoff hitter Gaby Sanchez in the eighth, then giving up a double on an 0-2 hanging breaking ball to lefty hitter Travis Snider.
When he threw an eight-inning complete game in a 1-0 loss at Philadelphia on April 17, Wood blamed only himself for not getting a sacrifice bunt down in the top of the eighth inning that could have helped the Braves get a lead.
He’s his own harshest critic. You won’t hear him talk about a lack of run support or a misplayed ball by his defense.
“I think you learn the hard way a lot of the time, especially at this level,” he said. “That’s probably the No. 1 way that a lot of people learn. It’s a hard road, but you’ve just got to kind of tell yourself you’ve got to control what you can control. I think going to the bullpen, that’s the biggest thing I took from there is just to kind of, you deal with it that day and then next day it’s over and done with.”
Perhaps, but he doesn’t let it go quite so easy. He rues the missed bunt at Philadelphia. Wonders how things might have gone if he’d buried that 0-2 slider to Snider on Wednesday. And the walk to Sanchez – that’s one he won’t forget.
“Ultimately, you can’t walk the leadoff guy,” he said. “Especially late in the game. You can’t. It was one of those things where I had been throwing all three (pitches) wherever I wanted the whole game, and then it gets away from me there in the eighth. It shows how fast this game happens, how quick things change at this level. One minute you’re sailing along, and suddenly you’ve got (runners on) second and third with no outs in the bottom of the eighth, and you’re out of the game.
“It’s just one of those things, you slow (the game) down but then all of a sudden it gets real fast, real quick. And you’ve just got to tell yourself, you need one pitch at a time. To me, I can live with physical mistakes. Mostly it was probably a physical mistake, hang the breaking ball to the lefty. But at the same time it’s mental, too. Because if your thought process is fully committed to it, that ball’s going in the dirt, more than likely you’re not going to (hang the pitch).”
Told how hard Wood had been on himself after Wednesday’s game at Pittsburgh, Gonzalez said, “And he was here at 12:30 today (at Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park), taking care of his body and preparing for his next start. And doing all the exercises that he needs to do to get back out there. You don’t (typically) see that from a young pitcher. Usually those habits come a little bit later from a veteran guy, but he’s had that since Day 1 in the major leagues.
“Sometimes we forget, he was pitching in Double-A last year.”
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