Braves Miscues Cost Them Big Inning, Cardinals Pinch Hit Homer Their Way To Victory
The cool Atlanta night started off in dramatic fashion for the wrong reason, as Atlanta Braves center fielder Ender Inciarte was lifted for Drew Stubbs after reaching on a throwing error by “shortstop” Jedd Gyorko on the first at bat of the night. He was later listed as day-to-day with a tight left hamstring. After Erick Aybar reached on yet another error by Gyorko, the Braves failed to score in the inning, but the good news was that Matt Wisler was ready. He allowed just 2 base runners in the first 3 frames, one of them being a hit batsman.
In the bottom of the third, Wisler helped himself with a nice single down the right field line that could have turned into more if it weren’t for the good work by Stephen Piscotty. From there, he didn’t stop. He advanced to third on nice heads up base running after a Stubbs single, and later scored on an Eric Aybar sacrifice fly to medium depth right field. Wisler must know his team has a problem with scoring runs.
Well, that didn’t happen tonight. With Stubbs moving to second on a stolen base (his second), and to third on the sacrifice fly, a Freddie Freeman strikeout and an intentional walk to Adonis Garcia set the stage for Nick Markakis. Markakis singled in his first run of the year, and was followed by Hector Olivera, who blooped a single off of the glove of Randal Grichuk in shallow center field, which plated another run and left runners at the corners once again. Tyler Flowers took advantage of his first high leverage at bat with the team who drafted him, hitting a clean RBI single to left field before Gordon Beckham hit into a force play to end the first big inning for the Braves this year.
Unfortunately, their good luck didn’t persist into the next inning.
After a clean leadoff double from Matt Holliday, Olivera made his first blunder in his short left field career by misjudging a fly ball off the bat of Matt Adams, allowing the ball to drop several steps in front of him for a single. This set the stage for a big innings for the Cardinals. After Grichuk rolled a ball just in front of Flowers, Yadier Molina scored Holliday on a groundout, and a “wild pitch” (it ricochet off of Flowers) scored Adams. A walk and single later, Jaime Garcia dribbled one just right and deep of the second base bag, and Beckham never had a chance. With Kolten Wong running on contact, he scored on the infield single, and concluded the scoring for the Cardinals in the 4th inning.
After that, Wisler settled back down and until the 7th inning. He surrendered a pinch hit home run to Jeremy Hazelbaker, and his night was finished after surrendering a hit to Matt Carpenter, who was thrown out trying to stretch it into a double. Daniel Winkler walked his first man all year (including Spring Training), but rebounded to get the final out to end the inning.
After failing to score with Stubbs on 3rd base and one out, the game changed when Fredi Gonzalez perhaps controversially started top of the 8th inning with Eric O’Flaherty facing lefty Matt Adams with righties Randall Grichuk and Yadier Molina to follow. Daniel Winkler had only thrown 6 pitches, and the pitchers spot had not been pinch hit for, but the Cardinals called this move with right-handed hitting rookie Aledmys Díaz, who promptly deposited a 1-0 pitch deep into the left field bleachers. O’Flaherty was immediately replaced by Jim Johnson, who got the first two batters he faced, and picked off the third after Wong reached on a single.
The Cardinals then poured salt in the wound as they hit yet another pinch hit homer, this time off the bat of Greg Garcia (who ARE these people?!), who was facing rookie John Gant. Gant then surrendered another homer off the bat of Piscotty, and the Braves went quietly in every inning following the explosive 3rd, with 0 hits and 2 walks from that inning on.
Braves highlights:
Matt Wisler: 6.2 IP, 7 H, 4 ER, 1 BB, 6K | He pitched much better than this line indicates.
Drew Stubbs: 1-3, 1 BB, 1 R, 1 SB | A solid night for someone coming cold off of the bench in the first inning.
Tyler Flowers: 1-3, 1 BB, 1 RBI | Good showing at the plate for a catcher not known for his bat in his first game for his hometown team.