For most of the game, it was a pitcher’s duel; for a brief moment, it seemed like it would be an easy win. Then the pen made things interesting. Fortunately, the good guys won!

Martin Perez did his classic thing, pitching four scoreless while giving up just one hit but four walks against only three strikeouts. Dylans Dodd and Lee threw a scoreless inning each, and Didier Fuentes followed one terrific inning with a second in which he gave up an extraordinarily long home run. That tied it at one apiece.

Six different Braves had multihit nights tonight, but really, it was basically a bunch of scattered hits that amounted to little until the Braves shoved a horseshoe up their butts in the eighth and batted around. A gaggle of mallards eating refried beans never produced so many duck farts.

The inning started softly, as Eli White pinch-hit for Yaz and grounded out. Then Dubon singled, Jarvis doubled – what a find he’s been, huh? – Hicklen doubled, and Drake drew a seven-pitch walk, ending Wandy Peralta’s night. Ozzie greeted the new guy by looping a ball to right which managed to fall, and Matt Olson did him one better by skying a ball to left field that fell between their left fielder and third baseman. (Thankfully, the umps realized it wasn’t an infield fly.) Michael struck out, but Austin managed to hit one with eyes up the middle, and Dom Smith pinch-hit for Eli White and hit a Baltimore chop over the first baseman’s head. That made it 7-1!

With a lead like that, Walt had Raisel sit down, and he brought in Victor Mederos, Monday’s hero. But he just didn’t have it. He kept yanking his sinker far outside the strike zone and the Padres started teeing off on his cutter. When Fernando Tatis hit a low liner to center, Michael made a risky play to try to dive and catch it, but it flew under his glove by an inch and rolled to the wall, so instead of being the second out of the inning, it went for a two-run triple. That ended Victor’s night and brought Raisel to the bump after all.

And then Raisel gave up a two-run homer, and we had a one-run game. Fortunately, it wasn’t one of those games, and he struck out the next two guys. Games like this feel a little like a microcosm of the season: if you’re having one of those seasons, this game seems like it inevitably goes one way. But if you’re not, then you get to laugh and shake hands instead.

Every W counts the same, but they’ll rarely be any uglier or sweeter than this one.