Braves Drop A Crazy, Long Game To The Nationals
By Eric Graff
Credit: Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports
It took 15 innings and the shortest outing of Mike Minors career, but the Nationals finally beat the Braves. Former Brave Adam LaRoche homered off Kris Medlen in the top of the 15th inning to give the Nationals an 8-7 victory in a long and crazy game that lasted 5 and a half hours. Wait, why was Kris Medlen in, he is a starter right? Well, the Braves had already exhausted their entire bullpen after Mike Minor couldn’t even make it out of the 2nd inning, only getting 5 outs and giving up 4 runs on 4 hits and 4 walks.
Jason Heyward tried to will the Braves to victory. He hit his second lead-off homer off Stephen Strasburg in the 1st and hit the game tying 2 run blast with 2 out in the 9th off former Braves closer Soriano to send the game into extras. Heyward has just been other-worldly lately and has turned what was a bad start to his season into a really good one.
Strasburg didn’t even last as long as Minor did. After giving up the lead-off homer to Heyward, Strasburg then predictably sent a fastball into the backside of Justin Upton. Then after Jordan Schafer started off the 2nd inning with a walk, then threw 3 straight wild pitches, 2 of which ended up behind the back of Andrelton Simmons, allowing Jordan Schafer to score. Strasburg was ejected from the game, but it was such an odd way to try to get revenge. First off, he never actualy hit Simmons and secondly he allowed a run to score when Schafer bolted home after the 3nd wild pitch. Strasburg may have done it on purpose, maybe got a case of the yips, or something was physically wrong. We don’t know for sure, but one thing is for sure, Strasburg just doesn’t like to pitch at Turner Field.
Even though they scored 7 runs, it wasn’t really a good night for the Braves offense for anyone other than Heyward, McCann, Freeman and Chris Johnson. In 15 innings of play those were the only 4 Braves that actually recorded a hit. McCann had 3 hits including a 2 run bomb, Freeman had 2 hits including a solo shot in the 8th, and Chris Johnson added 2 hits, one of which left him stranded on the bases in the bottom of the 15th, but also grounded into 2 double plays. Justin Upton had probably his worst night as a pro going 0-6 with 5 strikeouts after getting drilled in the 1st. Overall the Braves offense went 0-7 with RISP for the evening and struck out 20 times.