When home plate umpire Eric Cooper, historically a pitcher sympathizer, declared that his herky-jerky arm motion was meant to signal ball four to Andre Ethier rather than what we, Yunel Escobar, the second base umpire, and Vin Scully thought he meant–a strike–he may as well have been pulling the string on the death bell to the Atlanta Braves’ season. It seemed so hopeless. In addition to dealing with the best team in the NL, the Braves were also battling the proverbial 10th man–a capacity crowd of vociferous Dodger faithful–and the second umpire in as many weeks who seemed to be writing his own rule book as the game unfolded. The Dodgers took the gift and ran with it, going up by three runs moments after Bobby Cox was tossed for demanding to know if Bill Hohn’s phone number was programmed into Cooper’s cell. We all felt it: a night after Ethier’s demoralizing walk off home run, this was, officially, the end. Frustrated blogger’s were screaming foul, that the Braves should play the remainder of the game in protest; some even suggested they show their dismay by forfeiting. But as channels were changing and lamps were clicking off, the Braves played on. What transpired over the next several innings was reminiscent of the scrappy Braves teams of the 90’s, the teams that played hard until the final out, despite what the scoreboard read. They erased the Dodger’s lead with no outs left to spare, and then won the game in extra innings a few minutes before midnight.
They haven’t lost since.
Despite the Braves’ success out west, The Nationals came into Atlanta for a short series with good reason to like their chances: they were riding their longest winning streak of the season, and moreover, have inexplicably, always been a thorn in the Braves’ side. Not this time. Derek Lowe and the bullpen shut down a potent Nationals offense, and Adam LaRoche, the recently returned prodigal son, hit two monster home runs to give the Braves their highest total in a game all year (four). The win was their 5th in a row, and the first time they’ve been at 6 games over .500 since 2007.
Eric Cooper just may have inadvertantly galvanized a Braves team, one so comically ill-fated in recent years, into getting out from behind the eight ball once and for all.
If they keep playing like this–a mix of scrappy offense and excellent pitching–years predating 2007 may soon start getting mentioned in the same breath as these Braves, too.