Atlanta Braves
The Braves ended their losing skid last night with a 6-3 victory over the Cardinals, avoiding a three-game sweep. This ended a five game losing streak as well as an eight game winning streak for the Card’s, as R.A Dickey silenced the bats of the red birds which has been quite impossible to do as of late.
R.A. Dickey dominated on the road, which is unusual, and the Braves were able to do all of the little things right to pickup a much-needed win. It started with a solid outing from Dickey, who went seven innings, allowing one run on seven base-hits, and ended with a bang from Arodys Vizcaino, who picked up his sixth save. The teams combined for 23 hits, with the Braves winning the battle by one (12-11). The Braves bullpen pitched well outside of Jim Johnson, who was lit up again allowing three hits and two runs in just a third of an inning.
After three scoreless innings from both sides, the Braves struck first off of an RBI single by Danny Santana with the bases loaded. The next batter, Ozzie Albies, picked up after him with a sac fly to straight-away center field. An inning later, it took the Braves just two pitches to increase the lead by two. Ender Inciarte hit a first-pitch single followed by a Brandon Phillips two-run crank on the first pitch he saw. In the seventh inning, the Braves scored on a fielder’s choice and the Cardinals answered in the bottom half on a Carson Kelly RBI single.
Paul DeJong stayed hot with a solo homer in the bottom of the eighth inning and later in the inning Kolten Wong hit a ball by a diving Ozzie Albies to bring in what would be the last run they would score in the game. The Braves got an insurance run in the ninth with a lead-off triple by Jace Peterson and wild pitch by John Brebbia bringing the score to 6-3. Arodys Vizcaino came in and put down the first three batters that he met, capping it off with a strikeout.
Michael Wacha fell to 9-5 with a loss and R.A. Dickey got his eighth win, just his second on the road. The Braves one, two and three hitters combined for a 7-14 afternoon, scoring four of the six runs. Everyone in the order got on base for the Braves and only one didn’t have a hit (Tyler Flowers). Brandon Phillips hit his second homer in the last two games and put his home run total into double digits. On the flip side, Paul DeJong and Randal Grichuk each had another multi-hit game. DeJong went 3-5 with a home run putting his final numbers of the series at 7-13 with five RBI’s. Grichuk finished 6-12 with three extra base-hits after going 2-4 on Sunday.
The Braves head to Colorado gearing up for a four game set at Coors Field. Julio Teheran will take on Chad Bettis, who is making his first start of the season after battling testicular cancer since the end of last season. We wish him the best of luck in his return, but hope that the Braves can find away to come out on top.