Atlanta Braves Pen Collapses They Fall To Bumgarner–Giants

Four Down Five to Go

After a shaky first Bumgarner retired the next 12 braves hitters in a row before walking Recker to start the sixth. Gordon Beckham followed that with a single but  Chase d’Arnaud popped up and Brandon Snyder pinch-hitting for Blair hit into an inning ending double play.

On the day Blair threw 67 pitches – 38 for strikes in his four innings of work allowing five runs on eight hits – three homers – while striking out three. While Blair’s sinker seemed to be moving well  too many of them were up and in the hitting zone while his slider was not a factor finishing out of the zone way to often.

Cool Krol

Ian Krol replaced Blair and worked around an infield hit from Brandon Crawford for a quiet fifth. Braves bats came alive again in the sixth when the red-hot Inciarte doubled off the right field wall. Garcia hit what appeared to be a single to center but Panik made a nice place to get him at first with Inciarte moving to third.

Bumgarner had Freeman at sixes and sevens in his first two plate appearances striking him out in the first and enticing him to pop up in the fourth.His approach was different in the sixth taking the fifth pitch of the at bat to center, just barely clearing the wall for a two run shot putting Braves back in the game.

Kemp followed that with a screamer down the third base line that Nunez made a sterling play on to get him at first by a whisker.

Next: Not awful yet but wait. . .