ESPN Box Score

It shouldn’t have been that close, but I’ll take a win against the Nats however we can get it. Julio Teheran had one of those nights where he just couldn’t put anyone away, so this went from a no-doubter to a nailbiter in a hurry, before the Braves managed to win it in extras. This game was a good illustration of the benefits of home field advantage.

Neither team got much out of the first three spots in the order: theirs (Span, Rendon, Werth) were 2-for-16, ours (Heyward, Bupton, Freeman) were 1-for-12 with two walks and a caught stealing. But Chris Johnson went 3-5, Justin Upton went 3-3, Evan Gattis threw in an RBI single, and Ramiro Pena struck the biggest blow, a three-run homer in the second inning that made it seem like this game was in the bag.

Teheran didn’t have it, though. He threw a lot of sliders but couldn’t get much bite on them, and he gave up 10 hits in six innings, including a three-run homer by Ryan Zimmerman, who both giveth and taketh away. That made up for Pena’s blast and knotted the score at 4-4. The Braves scored a run in the bottom half of the inning and the Nats evened it up in the top of the sixth; then they pushed ahead by a run in the 8th and we tied it up in the bottom half of the inning via a Jupton homer. That’s three homers in two games for him. He just might be heating up.

B.J. went hitless again, and if Mac were here he’d have put B.J. in the doghouse long before now. That said, he was on base twice. In the first inning he hit a ball to deep short and Desmond bobbled it. If he played it perfectly and threw a perfect throw to first, he might have gotten B.J. but I think there’s a chance it might have been an infield hit; however, the Atlanta scorekeeper saw it differently and called the bobble an error. He got himself erased on the basepaths as he got thrown out attempting to steal. It was a good throw and I don’t know whether it was ordered from the dugout, but it didn’t help. B.J. also drew a walk in the 7th, and at this point, I guess we just have to take what we can get. Yeah, I know.

His brother’s doing better, fortunately. The 10th inning started inauspiciously, as Bupton and Freeman both quickly made outs against Nats lefty Jerry Blevins, one of their offseason imports. Then Regression hit a single, and Fredi put on his thinking cap and pinch-ran for him with Schafer. (I’m not sure who would have played third if we had gotten to the 11th inning, since Pena was already in the game. I wonder whether Andrelton would have come in at short while Pena slid over to third.)

With two outs and a 2-2 count, Schafer took off on a hit-and-run, and Justin Upton blooped it into no-mans land. Jordan scampered all the way around from first to score, and because we were at home, that was the ballgame. F’in success, man.