The Braves may have left behind all the champagne spraying and cigar smoking in Chicago where they clinched the division on Sunday, but they had a little celebration in mind for the home crowd Tuesday night.
Andrelton Simmons drove in a run with a single to right center to delight the Turner Field crowd with a 3-2 walk-off win over the Brewers. Then he got pounded by his teammates with water, dirt, and …
“A lot of dirt,” Simmons said smiling. “And some more dirt.”
Justin Upton had led off the ninth with a single off reliever Donovan Hand and advanced to second base on an infield hit by Evan Gattis, his third hit of the game. The Braves were down to their final out in the ninth when Simmons used a little muscle memory for his third walk-off hit of the year.
“I struggled a little bit with runners in scoring position earlier this year,” Simmons said. “I’ve been learning, took me a while, but I have a better idea on what I need to do in those situations.”
In this instance, that meant casing out Hand’s breaking ball, which Simmons swung through and missed on the first pitch and connected with on the second.
“I knew I didn’t have to do much right there,” Simmons said. “I had a runner in scoring position. I saw the pitcher work. He liked his offspeed, so I just told myself see the ball and if it’s a heater just react, but see instead of jumping on a fastball.”
The Braves maintained a one-half game lead on the Cardinals for the best record in the NL. Cardinals pitcher Michael Wacha came one out away from throwing a no-hitter in a 2-0 win over the Nationals. The Braves, who have the tiebreaker advantage because of their 4-3 record against St. Louis, saw their magic number to clinch home field drop to four with five games to play.
The Braves rallied from deficits of 1-0 and 2-1 to tie it twice against Riverwood High graduate Tyler Thornburg and then walked off winners for the 11th time this season.
The Braves are still only 10-12 in September but have a chance to win their second straight series since dropping a series in Washington on a doubleheader sweep.
“I think the series in Washington kind of woke us up a little bit,” said Braves reliever David Carpenter, who retired three batters in the eighth to set up Craig Kimbrel for a win in the ninth. “It’s a very good opportunity for us right now to get the wheels turning in the right direction and carry it on into the playoffs.”
Freddy Garcia has some of his own playoff concerns to address. He was pitching for a chance to claim the fourth starter’s spot in the division series.
Garcia has the postseason track record, and now three quality starts as a Brave, to make his case. He gave up two runs in 6 2/3 innings, walked one and struck out seven, before leaving Tuesday’s game with a 2-2 tie.
Garcia has a 1.80 ERA in three starts (four earned runs in 19 2/3 innings) and a 1.65 ERA overall, including three appearances in relief, since the Braves sent cash to Baltimore for him August 23.
“Yeah, why not?” Garcia said when asked about making a push to make the playoff rotation. “…I was in Triple-A. Now I’m a part of something real nice. I’m just trying to enjoy. If I have an opportunity to pitch, I will. Hopefully we’ll win the best record and go from there.”
Paul Maholm, who’s battled some late-season elbow soreness, will pitch Wednesday’s series finale, trying to make a case of his own.
As solid as he was, Garcia couldn’t out-duel 24-year-old Thornburg, who gave up only two earned runs in seven innings for his seventh quality start in seven starts this season for the Brewers.
“Being from here, I tried to push the moment aside a little bit and tried to stick with what I’ve been doing,” Thornburg told reporters afterward. “And it worked well tonight.”
Gattis doubled in the game’s first run off him in the fourth inning on his way to a 3-for-4 night. Freddie Freeman drove in the other with an RBI single in the fourth. Freeman went 2-for-4, collected his 106th RBI of the season and raised his season batting average with runners in scoring position to .440 (55-for-125), which is second-best in the major leagues behind Allen Craig.
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