ESPN Box Score

After working a 12-hour day today, I came home to feverishly scrub my house for six hours in anticipation of my lease expiring tomorrow and my wanting my security deposit back. As much as I normally hate west coast games, I was glad for this one, since my plan was that having the Braves on would help keep me awake and distracted from the menial tasks I was finishing up. Neither Alex Wood nor Zack Greinke disappointed me in my goal. Both of them pitched gems, and tomorrow’s anticipated matchup between Julio Teheran and Clayton Kershaw has a lot to live up to after this one.

If you’re a fan of offense and don’t like pitchers’ duels, the most exciting thing that happened for the first seven innings of tonight’s game was the report/notice the Giants’ releasing Dan Uggla got, only to have it retracted a few hours later, sparking another bout of speculation and comments by paid analysts and social media analysts. If he doesn’t end up getting released with the Giants adding someone at the trade deadline, this “news” is not going to do anything at all for his confidence.

Both pitchers blinked in the 2nd inning, when Greinke gave up a double to Evan Gattis and an RBI single to Andrelton Simmons and Alex Wood gave the run right back with a home run to none other than Matt Kemp, who is rapidly becoming quite the annoyance. After that they traded scoreless frame after scoreless frame through the top of the eighth. Wood pitched into and out of a little trouble, but looked sharp and got key strikeouts when he needed them.

Wood successfully held Yasiel Puig in check, and Puig expressed his displeasure by failing to run to first not once but twice after hitting popups to the right side. As much as I love great defense, I was kind of hoping the Braves would make an error on those so that his immaturity would be thrust more prominently into the spotlight. One of the first rules to baseball is to run to first after you hit the ball into fair territory, no matter where it’s hit—it’s not rocket science.

While Alex Wood was earning accolades from Braves fans for his performance, BJ Upton was most decidedly not. BJ collected the golden sombrero, miring him in a stretch of seven strikeouts over eight plate appearances. All the warm fuzzies he managed to create in the first inning of Tuesday’s game when he manufactured a run with his speed and beat out Puig’s throw are most decidedly gone.

The eighth inning made things interesting, when Jordan Walden came on and got two quick outs before issuing a walk to, who else, Matt Kemp. Two-out walks always come back to bite, and this one proved to be no exception. A single moved Kemp to second and then Juan Uribe, whom I really have begun to hold an intense dislike for, drove him home. Andrelton Simmons made a great diving play to get to the ball, but he couldn’t get Kemp at home and then he kept rubbing his shoulder and causing great concern among those Braves fans who were still awake at that late hour. If that does cause some lingering problems, our upcoming impossible schedule looks that much worse. He was checked out by the trainers and stayed in the game, so hopefully he’s okay.

When all hope seemed lost, Justin Upton led off the ninth with a home run to re-tie the game, and if a west coast game isn’t great enough, extra inning west coast games are even better. David Hale looked sharp in the ninth, but back-to-back singles to begin the 10th with a wild pitch sandwiched in between sent him home the loser as Matt Kemp, fricking Matt Kemp, hit the walk off since clearly scoring the Dodgers other two runs was not enough for him.

In order to not be swept by the Dodgers we have to beat Kershaw Thursday night. That is really not a position you ever want to see your team in, but we’re Braves fans, and this is what we’ve come to expect from the team we all know (and sometimes love but always root for).

Natspo(s) delenda est.