Clippings Saturday, September 5, 2015 Braves.com

Braves dealt 10-inning heartbreaker

By Jacob Emert and Mark Bowman / MLB.com | 12:08 AM ET

WASHINGTON -- Left out of the starting lineup with a sore right knee, Michael Taylor was called off the bench in the bottom of the 10th and made history, crushing a three-run walk-off to catapult the Nationals to a 5-2 win over Atlanta on Friday.

The win moved the Nationals to within five games of the Mets, who lost, 6-5, in 11 innings to the Marlins on Friday night.

"It was very exciting for me, just to be able to help the team," Taylor said of the first pinch-hit walk-off home run in team history. "I wasn't in there. I want to play. I was standing at the bat rack the whole game trying to get in the game. Just to be able to get in there and get a chance, I was happy for that."

In the bottom of the ninth, with the Nationals trailing, 2-1, and down to their final out, Matt den Dekker extended the game with an RBI single off Atlanta's Arodys Vizcaino to force extra innings.

"I was just trying to take a short stroke on it and not do too much," said den Dekker.. "A guy throwing that hard, you can't really get too big. You gotta stay short and stay through the middle and that's what I did."

Nick Swisher singled home Freddie Freeman in the eighth inning to give the Braves a 2-1 edge. Freeman started the eighth with a double, his third hit, off Drew Storen.

The Braves have lost 17 of their past 18 games and 24 of the past 26 played on the road.

"I'm really pleased with our club after the thumping we took [Thursday]," Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. "To come out and pitch and play with some energy and some enthusiasm, it was a fun game of we played today."

MOMENTS THAT MATTERED Unloading the bases: With runners at the corners and two outs in the third inning, the Braves intentionally walked Bryce Harper, who had launched a 446-foot blast, according to Statcast™, in the first, to load the bases for the red-hot Ryan Zimmerman, who flied out to right to end the threat. Zimmerman improved to 6-for-26 against Teheran with a leadoff single that helped the Nationals load the bases in the sixth. The Braves hurler ended his 114-pitch night and escaped this threat by striking out Ian Desmond and inducing Jose Lobaton's soft fly ball to left field. This was one of the most impressive starts of the season produced by Teheran, whose consistently sat between 94-95 mph as he allowed one run over six innings.

"I feel really good," Teheran said. "I got in trouble, but I never gave up. My mind is strong. I was just trying to make pitches and trying to show my team that I wanted to stay in there."

Call for help: Tanner Roark entered his start on an 85-pitch limit, and that number was approaching quickly in the fifth after the right-hander allowed a walk and a double. After a mound visit bought time for Matt Thornton in the bullpen, the Nationals intentionally walked Freeman -- who entered the game 99-for-292 (.339) against Washington and had already knocked two hits -- to load the bases with one out. Manager Matt Williams then called for Thornton, who got A.J. Pierzynski to pop out into shallow left field and Adonis Garcia to ground out softly to second to end the threat..

"A.J., I knew he'd be swinging. I told Lobi what the game plan was and went from there," Thornton said. "Then, trusted Lobi on the young kid that came up after him. … Try to get the two outs before anyone scored. I got pretty lucky there and made the pitches when I needed to even though I fell behind on both of them. But in that situation, it's just try to find a way."

Viz times two: Instead of taking a chance with any of his other less-reliable relievers, Gonzalez gave Vizcaino a chance to notch his first two-inning save. Vizcaino walked Harper to begin the bottom of the eighth, but was the beneficiary of a Clint Robinson liner that resulted in an inning-ending double play. Yunel Escobar doubled to begin the bottom of the ninth and scored on den Dekker's game-tying single. Vizcaino had successfully converted each of his previous save opportunities. He's allowed just two earned runs in 22 1/3 innings.

On, over and in: Needing at least one run to stay alive, Escobar started off the bottom of the ninth inning with a flared double into right field. Desmond missed on his first two sacrifice bunt attempts, but he stayed with it and moved pinch-runner Trea Turner to third base. Wilson Ramos struck out, but den Dekker came through and gave the Nationals a chance to win it in the 10th.

"Sam [Palace, bullpen catcher] and Ali [Modami, BP pitcher] do a great job down in the cage keeping us ready, throwing us BP and going over situations and pitchers coming up," den Dekker said. "Just staying ready physically and mentally and just being ready for that spot."

QUOTABLE "Julio pitched really well. He wiggled out of some situations. There were a couple situations there in the sixth inning where we could have taken him out, but the way we've been going, it was his game." -- Gonzalez

"I don't think it makes this win any bigger. I think it makes the rest of the season bigger. Like I said, it's not going to be one game, it's not going to be a series here or there. It's going to be us being able to keep the momentum that we have right now and carrying that throughout the rest of the season till the last game of the season. And that's all we can do, lay it out there and compete. Like I said, this is playoff baseball and it's where we're at." -- closer Jonathan Papelbon, after finding out the Mets lost

WHAT'S NEXT Braves: Shelby Miller will be attempting to earn his first win since May 17 when he takes the mound Saturday night against the Nationals. First pitch is scheduled for 7:05 p.m. ET. Miller has allowed two earned runs or fewer 12 times during his 19-start winless streak..

Nationals: Left-hander Gio Gonzalez will pitch against the Braves on Saturday night. In his last outing against St. Louis, Gonzalez pitched through the sixth for just the second time in August. He was 1-3 with a 5.46 ERA last month.

Vizcaino comes up short of two-inning save

'Best guy' gets through eighth, but unable to protect lead

By Mark Bowman / MLB.com | @mlbbowman | 12:59 AM ET

WASHINGTON -- Though the desired result was not achieved, Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez had no reason to second-guess his decision to give Arodys Vizcaino a chance to earn a two-inning save in Friday night's 5-2, 10-inning loss to the Nationals at Nationals Park.

Accounting for the lack of reliable depth in his bullpen, Gonzalez went against the book and made the decision to give Vizcaino the responsibility to protect a one-run lead while facing Bryce Harper, Ryan Zimmerman and Clint Robinson in the eighth inning.

"I didn't want anybody else facing that middle of the lineup in the eighth inning," Gonzalez said. "[Vizcaino] is our best guy. He was going to face Harper, Zimmerman and Robinson. At that point, we were still undecided. If he gives you a quick inning, you run him back out there. If he doesn't, you mix and match and see what you can do to get through the ninth.

Vizcaino's inability to record the sixth and final out he was assigned led to the Braves enduring a 10th straight loss and 17th in their past 18 games. But this latest setback was also influenced by the fact that the Braves did not take advantage after putting the first two runners on in the ninth. The Atlanta offense has tallied two runs or fewer in four of the past five games.

"We've got to go out and score runs," Gonzalez said. "Two runs, one run or three runs doesn't alleviate any pressure for that bullpen. It doesn't provide any wiggle room."

When Matt Marksberry and Brandon Cunniff did not record an out while facing Harper, Zimmerman and Michael Taylor in the 10th inning, they provided a glimpse of what the eighth inning might have looked like had Gonzalez not given the ball to the dependable Vizcaino, who had successfully converted each of his previous four save opportunities and had surrendered just one run in his previous 21 2/3 innings.

"The bottom line is I was brought in to try to help the club win," Vizcaino said. "I feel good that he gave me the opportunity. It didn't work out the way we would have liked, but I was glad to get the opportunity."

Vizcaino needed just 14 pitches to complete a scoreless eighth inning, but his margin for error remained slim when the Braves were unable to score in the ninth. Yunel Escobar opened the bottom of the ninth with an opposite-field double, but he was still on third base when Vizcaino pumped a 101-mph past Wilson Ramos to record his fifth out of the night.

Unfortunately, that sixth out was never recorded as Vizcaino exited after Matt den Dekker followed with a two-out, game-tying single.

Though the result was unfavorable, Gonzalez certainly would have taken more heat had he tried to get through the middle of the Nationals lineup with Marksberry, Cunniff or one of the other members of his inexperienced bullpen with the hope of still having a lead for Vizcaino to preserve in the ninth. "I liked everything about the ballgame, except the ending," Gonzalez said.

Vets trying to get message through to youngsters

Clubhouse leadership maintaining focus for final month

By Mark Bowman / MLB.com | @mlbbowman | 12:24 AM ET

WASHINGTON -- After the Braves endured their third double-digit loss within a seven-day span on Thursday, Nick Swisher was among the veterans who addressed some of the younger players with a reminder that there is still time to show some pride and make strides that could create both immediate and future benefits.

"We've got to all come together and do this thing together," Swisher said. "That is our fight right now, coming together as a unit and doing this as a unit. You can't do this as individuals. As much as you'd like to do it, you can't be LeBron James -- get the ball every time down the court and just dunk. That's just not going to happen. This [stinks] that it's happened, but I think this is going to help us in the long run so much because nobody likes getting their [butt] kicked."

Though the Braves were weakened by late July trades that sent , Juan Uribe, Alex Wood, Luis Avilan and Jim Johnson elsewhere, nobody could have expected them to lose 17 of their past 18 games and 31 of 40 going back to July 24 (the day Johnson and Uribe were traded to the Mets for two Minor League pitchers).

"It [stinks], I don't care who you are, I want to go out there and win," Braves catcher A.J. Pierzynski said before Friday night's 5-2, 10-inning setback. "I've never been on a team that has lost this amount of games in this short of time and it [stinks]. There's no other way to put it.

"Everyone, including myself, has to look in the mirror and figure out what you can do that day and that inning and that pitch and that at-bat to help this team win a game. There's no rah-rah. There's no yelling or getting mad and thinking. 'Let's go fight somebody.' That's not the way to handle it. It's about being a professional and going out there and doing your job. If everyone does their job, everything will take care of itself."

Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said there have been a few occasions over the past few weeks when some of veterans, including the recently- departed Jonny Gomes, have indeed challenged some of the younger players with verbal messages delivered in an authoritative manner.

"Sometimes, you've got to get their attention," Gonzalez said. "Sometimes, it's better when it comes from a peer, instead of a coach. That's not saying we haven't done it, but sometimes, it's better to come from a friend or one of your teammates. It's OK to get upset, mad and frustrated. If you've got any kind of competitive juices in you, you've got to get frustrated and upset."

Gonzalez offered a story about how one of his unnamed veterans recently attempted to make sure a group of younger players understood that the pain of losing should be the same regardless of the amount of money or service time that has been compiled.

"[The veteran] said, 'It doesn't matter how much money I'm making, it still [stinks] because it's not easy to come out here, get beat and be out of the game by the second or third inning,'" Gonzalez said. "So, I like that. These guys are still grinding to win games."

Nats hand momentum to Gio against slumping Braves

By Mark Bowman / MLB.com | @mlbbowman |

As the Nationals sit five games behind the first-place Mets in the National League East race, they understand they need a lot of things to go right in order to make the postseason. But they might not even be in this position without the dominance they have displayed while winning 11 of the 14 games played against the Braves this season.

The Nationals, who will face the Mets for three games starting Monday, will attempt to add to this success when they send Gio Gonzalez to the mound to oppose Shelby Miller and the Braves on Saturday night at Nationals Park. Atlanta has lost 17 of its past 18 games and 24 of the past 26 played on the road.

Things to know about this game

• Bryce Harper homered in the first inning and then delivered a leadoff single that led to Washington's 10-inning win over the Braves on Friday night. Harper has recorded 10 hits and drawn 15 walks in the 45 plate appearances he has compiled dating back to Aug. 26. This equates to a .619 on-base percentage.

• Miller has allowed two earned runs or fewer 12 times during his 19-start winless streak. The Braves have provided two runs or fewer of support 14 times during this maddening stretch. The Atlanta ace has produced a 1.72 ERA through six career starts against Washington. • Gonzalez has posted a 5.00 ERA over his last seven starts, three of which did not consist of at least five innings. The Nationals southpaw faced the Braves just one previous time this season, limiting them to two runs over seven innings on May 8.

• With his three-hit performance on Friday, Atlanta's Freddie Freeman has hit .345 with a .925 OPS in 81 career games against the Nationals.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Braves quotes after Friday’s 10-inning loss to Nationals

By David O'Brien - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

WASHINGTON — Braves quotes from Fredi Gonzlalez, Julio Teheran and Arodys Vizcaino after Friday’s 10-inning, 5-2 loss to the Nationals.

**FREDI GONZALEZ

Despite loss, were you at least encouraged by the improved pitching?

“As far as intensity, we were good to go. Freddie on that hustle double right off the bat, and we end up scoring a run there. I liked everything about the ballgame except the ending. I really did. You can’t fault that. And you know what I liked about the ending? We didn’t walk anybody. They got three hits to beat us. Right now, that’s a positive.”

On trying to get a two-inning save out of your best reliever, Vizcaino

“I didn’t want anybody else facing the middle of that lineup in the eighth inning. He’s our best guy, he’s going to face Harper, Zimmerman and Robinson. And at that point we still were undecided – if he goes out there and gives you a quick inning, then let him go back out there. If he doesn’t, then you mix and match, see what happens, see if you can get through the ninth. But my thinking, there was nobody else in that bullpen that I was going to let face those guys other than Vizcaino.”

On Teheran’s performance

“He pitched really well. Wiggled out of some situations. There was a situation there in the sixth inning where you could have taken him out of the game, but the way we’ve been going, it was his game. We were getting close to the pitch count mark, where he got tired (before), and three times through the lineup and that kind of stuff. But for me, it was his game to win or his game to lose, and he stepped up and gave us an hell of an opportunity to win the game today.”

Did you like the fire and emotion that Teheran showed a couple of times, the fist-pump?

“I saw a lot of fire from everybody. So that’s good. Great pitching performance. We needed more runs, we couldn’t get them.”

Seemed like all the buttons you pushed, intentional walks and that kind of thing, most or all of them worked, but still just didn’t score enough runs to win

“You’re right, we’ve got to go out and score runs. Two runs, one run, three runs, that doesn’t alleviate any of the pressure for that bullpen, or given them any wiggle room. Right now we’re not scoring runs. But I’m really pleased with our club after the thumping that we took yesterday, to come out today and pitch and play with some energy and enthusiasm. It was a fun baseball game that we played today.”

I don’t recall Markakis bunting once all season, so was that the reasoning in not having him bunt in ninth, you like his bat control and figure he can do more swinging?

“Yeah. I think the last time he bunted might have been his rookie season. He’s our best hitter, I don’t want to play a one-run game with our bullpen situation. I want to be able to give him a chance to maybe break it open, if he hits a double and we score two or three runs.”

On Pierzynski’s hit tying him for 10th on the all-time catchers’ hit lists

“And the first RBI (of the game), too, but the way. What a great career this guy’s had, and he’s not even done yet. I know we’ve used him, and probably used him too much at times. But what a great career. And he needs one more to break that tie for 10th. He’s been special, he’s been good for us, and hopefully he can break more milestones before the season ends.”

He could catch Johnny Bench for ninth around the All-Star break next year, pretty impressive company he’s keeping

“Is that the next guy (Bench)? Well, hopefully we’ll get a chance to witness it, because he’s been good.”

Braves’ 10th consecutive loss in a 10th-inning walkoff by Nationals

By David O'Brien - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

WASHINGTON — Until the ninth inning Friday it looked as if the Braves, mired in one of their worst stretches of baseball in nearly three decades, would be able to use big performances from their opening day starter and their best hitter to to finally snap out of the funk for at least one night.

Julio Teheran pitched six strong innings and made big pitches when he needed them most, Freddie Freeman had three hits including two doubles, and Nick Swisher’s pinch single in the eighth scored Freeman and gave the Braves a 2-1 lead.

But when manager Fredi Gonzalez tried to get a two-inning save out of Arodys Vizcaino, the hard-throwing rookie gave up the tying run in the ninth, and Michael Taylor’s three-run homer off Brandon Cunniff in the 10th gave the Nationals a 5-2 walkoff win at Nationals Park. It was the 10th consecutive loss for the Braves and their 17th in 18 games.

“I liked everything about the ballgame except the ending,” said Gonzalez, whose Braves are 0-8 this season at Nationals Parks. “And you know what I liked about the ending? We didn’t walk anybody. They got three hits to beat us. Right now, that’s a positive.”

Bryce Harper led off the Nationals’ 10th by punching a single through the left side of the infield against rookie left-hander Matt Marksberry. Ryan Zimmerman followed with a hard-bouncing single up the middle against rookie Cunniff, and pinch-hitter Taylor drove a 1-o slider to the center-field bleachers to hand the Braves their 11th consecutive road loss.

Former Brave Yunel Escobar led off the Nationals’ ninth with a double, advanced on a sacrifice, and scored the tying run on Matt den Dekker’s two- out pinch-hit single, after Vizcaino struck out Wilson Ramos.

“I feel good that (Gonzalez) gave me the opportunity,” said Vizcaino, who had 21 scoreless appearances out of 22 before Friday. “It didn’t work the way I would have liked it to, but I’m happy to get that opportunity. The pitches I threw, I located. But they got the bat on the ball.”

Jayson Werth followed den Dekker with a single through the left side of the infield before sidearmer Peter Moylan replaced Vizcaino with runners on first and second.

In the eighth, Vizcaino walked Harper to start the inning, then struck out hot-hitting Ryan Zimmerman before getting Clint Robinson to line into an inning-ending double play on a nice reaction play by first baseman Freeman.

“I didn’t want anybody else facing the middle of that lineup in the eighth inning,” Gonzalez said of the decision to use Vizcaino in the eighth. “He’s our best guy, he’s going to face Harper, Zimmerman and Robinson. And at that point we still were undecided – if he goes out there and gives you a quick inning, then let him go back out there.”

Before Friday, the Braves’ 1-16 stretch was their worst in a 17-game period since 1977, when they lost 17 in a row during April and May. They are 12-39 going back to July 8, including 2-24 on the road in that period.

Teheran had one of his best and most tough-minded starts of the season, limiting the Nationals to one run, five hits and four walks (one intentional) in six innings, with four .

“There was a situation there in the sixth inning where you could have taken him out of the game,” Gonzalez said, “but the way we’ve been going, it was his game. We were getting close to the pitch count mark, where he got tired (before), and three times through the lineup and that kind of stuff. But for me, it was his game to win or his game to lose, and he stepped up and gave us an hell of an opportunity to win the game today.”

He threw 114 pitches and worked out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the sixth with the score tied, 1-1.

“I really wanted to win, I wanted to push my team to a win in this game,” Teheran said.

Freeman, always a thorn in the side of Nationals pitchers, went 3-for-4 with two doubles and an intentional walk, including a leadoff double in the eighth. He scored from second one out later on Swisher’s single. Freeman has hit .413 with 25 extra-base hits in his past 45 games against the Nationals.

Teheran gave up a two-out homer to Harper in the first inning, but worked out of trouble in three other innings when the Nationals had at least two on base with less than two outs.

The Nationals loaded the bases in the sixth with three consecutive one-out singles, but Teheran struck out Ian Desmond and got Jose Lobaton to fly out to end the inning, the second time he retired Lobaton with multiple runners on base. Lobaton had been 7-for-13 with two homers against Teheran before Friday.

The Braves had several chances to take a lead, but they failed to capitalize until Swisher came through in the eighth. Adonis Garcia came to bat three times in the first five innings with two out and multiple runners on base, and in all three cases he ended the inning. He grounded out with two on in the first inning, flied out with two on the third, and grounded out with bases loaded in the fifth. That made Garcia 1-for-27 with runners in scoring position, including 0-for-17 with 2 outs. Before Friday, the Braves were last in the National League in batting average with runners in scoring position (.220) since the All-Star break, including 10-for-64 (.156) during the losing streak.

After playing third baseman Hector Olivera in three consecutive games since the heralded Cuban newcomer arrived from Triple-A, Gonzalez rested him Friday and started Garcia. The Braves had said they would be careful not to push Olivera too much in his first couple of weeks in the majors, since he missed about six weeks with a hamstring injury.

Garcia has been a pleasant surprise with seven homers in his first 38 games in the majors, but his defense – seven errors in his past 33 games – and situational hitting have been problematic. Clint Robinson’s routine grounder went between Garcia’s legs to start the fourth inning and Escobar followed with a walk.

Teheran worked out of the jam when right fielder Nick Markakis made a running catch on Desmond’s sinking liner near the right-field line and Teheran induced an an inning-ending 1-6-3 double play grounder from Lobaton. Teheran pumped his first, an uncommon display of emotion from the usually stoic right-hander.

Pierzynski not only tied the score, 1-1, with his two-out infield single in the third inning, he also tied Hall of Famer Bill Dickey for 10th place on the all-time hits list for catchers with 1,969. Next on the list is Johnny Bench, with 2,048 hits.

The Nationals took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the inning on Harper’s two-out home run, a mammoth shot to right-center on a full-count fastball. It was the 32nd homer of the season for Harper, and made him 10-for-22 with three homers in his career against Teheran.

Fifty seasons after bringing Braves here, Bartholomay has seen it all

By Tim Tucker - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

As the Braves complete their 50th season in Atlanta, the man who brought them here remains actively engaged with the team.

In fact, just within the past month, former owner Bill Bartholomay twice came to Atlanta to watch the Braves play, attended a ceremony at the SunTrust Park construction site and, on his 87th birthday, helped represent the franchise at MLB owners’ meetings in his hometown of Chicago.

“Baseball has been a great part of my life,” Bartholomay said recently. “I was an honorary Cubs bat boy when I was 9 years old. I’m as enthusiastic now as I was then.”

No one has experienced the full range of Atlanta’s major-league sports timeline, from start until today, at a higher level than Bartholomay. So it seems fitting in these fading weeks of the Braves’ 50th season here to revisit the team’s Atlanta history with the man who started it.

As a young Chicago insurance executive, Bartholomay was the leader of a group that bought the Milwaukee Braves for $6.2 million in 1962, decided in 1964 to move the franchise to Atlanta and weathered Wisconsin court battles to make it happen in 1966. He lived in Atlanta apartments, first downtown and then in Buckhead, during the team’s early seasons here. He lifted Hank Aaron’s mother over the barrier at the front of the owner’s box so she could meet her son at home plate after Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s career home-run record on April 8, 1974.

Bartholomay sold the Braves to Ted Turner for $11 million in 1976, partly because some of his partners’ enthusiasm for their investment had waned. But throughout Turner’s ownership and then Time Warner’s and now Liberty Media’s, Bartholomay has remained a prominent part of the organization — chairman of the board of directors until 2003 and chairman emeritus since then.

His input has been sought by Braves owners and executives, as well as by baseball commissioners, through the decades. In recent years, he chaired MLB’s ownership committee and served on its executive council. He has known all ten baseball commissioners, starting with Kenesaw Mountain Landis, whom Bartholomay met as a kid.

Retelling the story of how major-league sports came to Atlanta — the Braves arrived first, followed five months later by the Falcons and 2 1/2 years later by the Hawks — Bartholomay begins at the MLB All-Star Game in Cleveland on July 9, 1963.

Atlanta sent a delegation, led by Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. and backed by banker Mills B. Lane Jr., to the All-Star festivities to make sure baseball understood that the city wanted a team and would have a new 50,000-seat stadium ready for it.

“They made it very clear that the stadium was going to be completed, with or without a tenant,” Bartholomay recalled. “Atlanta was going to take the lead in a lot of things — the new economy and the new South and whatnot — and part of that was professional sports, baseball and football. … To make about a $20 million commitment to build a stadium on spec with no team involved was pretty gutsy, to say the least.

“The two teams that had leases that were about to run out at the time were our team and the Indians. Atlanta made it perfectly clear to me that given a preference, they wanted a National League team. The Braves seemed to be the logical one. We took it seriously.”

In Milwaukee, the Braves’ attendance had fallen precipitously from its highs of the late 1950s. “With the Chicago teams 89 miles away (to the south), no fans in Lake Michigan (to the east) and the Twins’ move into Minneapolis eliminating a lot of our fan base from western Wisconsin, we were getting boxed in,” Bartholomay said.

In Atlanta, he saw a growing and untapped market that could draw fans and TV/radio revenue from multiple states.

In October 1964, the Braves’ board of directors voted 12-6 to move the team to Atlanta. Ernie Johnson, then the team’s publicity director and later its beloved broadcaster, announced the news to reporters in Chicago. National League owners unanimously approved the move, although the lease and legal challenge kept the Braves in Milwaukee through the 1965 season.

“Frankly, we thought it was a very great opportunity for baseball, 100 years after Reconstruction, to kind of lead professional sports on a regular- season basis into the southeastern part of the United States,” Bartholomay said. “And … I think (major-league sports) helped make Atlanta what it is today.”

Bartholomay recalled that among the complexities he had to work through was a deal with Earl Mann, owner of the Atlanta Crackers minor-league team.

“He was entitled to some compensation for the territory,” Bartholomay said. “Earl thought $250,000 was about the right number. I thought it would be a little less than that. We went back and forth for a long time … and finally settled on $200,000. He said you could pay it over two years.”

That’s equivalent to about $1.5 million today.

Another issue, Bartholomay recalled, was whether to put a roof on Atlanta’s stadium, which was being built at the same time as Houston’s Astrodome.

“It was speculated a roof would cost around $4 million,” he said. “I didn’t think it was that important in Atlanta and I still don’t. Rain delays are part of the game.”

And then there was the matter of the team’s final days in Milwaukee. Understandably unpopular there, Bartholomay had made a public commitment to attend all remaining home games if the Braves were in contention on Labor Day 1965, which they were.

“It was not the happiest experience because there was an awful lot of anger up there,” he said. “But just being there, they could focus the anger on me and not take it out on the players.”

Finally, on April 12, 1966, big-league sports arrived in Atlanta when the Braves played their first regular-season game here. They lost 3-2 to the before 50,671 fans.

“I remember a lot of things about that night,” said Bartholomay, who was 37 at the time. “Joe Torre hit two home runs and scored both our runs. The game went 13 innings and (manager) Bobby Bragan left Tony Cloninger in for the whole game. I don’t think he was ever the same after that from a pitching standpoint.

“We tragically lost the game, but it was a fantastic night.”

Bartholomay has lived a lot of Braves history since then.

He recalls the excitement when the Braves reached the inaugural National League Championship Series in 1969, losing to the Miracle Mets. He calls Aaron’s 715th career home run in 1974 “a momentous night for me and all of us who were there … a happy story at a time when things weren’t going so well in America.” He still frets a fifth-inning rain-out that wasted a lead with Phil Niekro on the mound in the opener of the 1982 NLCS against the Cardinals.

He savors the Doyle Alexander-for-John Smoltz trade in 1987: “I count my blessings every day for Doyle Alexander, because (otherwise) we never would have had Smoltzie.” And of course, he revels in the 1990s, when the Braves reached the World Series five times and won it once.

“When things got good, they got really good,” Bartholomay said.

He thinks they’ll get good again soon, even as a massive rebuilding process has resulted in the team’s worst season in 25 years.

“You suffer with these guys, lose a lot of tough games,” he said, “but we’re doing the right thing.”

He supports the 2017 move to Cobb County’s SunTrust Park, which will be the Braves’ third stadium since he brought them here.

Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, designed to accommodate baseball and football, “wasn’t perfect for either one, but it had a charm about it. I liked it a lot,” Bartholomay said. “has been good,” he said, but SunTrust Park “is going to be even better. I know it’s outside the city limits, but not by far.

“We’ll see, but I think it’s going to be a very popular destination.”

He has seen it all.

ABOUT THIS SERIES

This interview with former Braves owner Bill Bartholomay starts a series of AJC stories marking a half-century of major-league sports in Atlanta.

Also today: Fifty people who have made huge impacts on Atlanta’s major-league sports history.

Monday: Fifty years. One championship. How Atlanta’s shortage of championships compares to other cities.

Tuesday: The Braves’ and Falcons’ strategies in marketing their 50th seasons here, and how fans react.

Wednesday: Chat about Atlanta’s major-league sports history — and future — with staff writer Tim Tucker on AJC.com at 2 p.m. Also, test your knowledge in an AJC.com interactive quiz.

Braves hire Lombard as minor league field coordinator

By David O'Brien - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

WASHINGTON — The Braves hired former outfielder George Lombard as their new minor league field coordinator.

Lombard, a graduate of Lovett School in Atlanta, spent the past six seasons working in the organization, including three seasons as minor league outfield and baserunning coordinator through 2015. He was a rookie-league manager and rookie-league hitting coach before that.

Lombard will report to director of player development Dave Trembley and his assistant director, Jonathan Schuerholz.

Selected by the Braves in the second round of the 1994 free-agent draft out of Lovett, Lombard made his major league debut with Atlanta in 1998 at age 22. He hit .220 (77-for-350) with eight home runs and 23 stolen bases in 144 games during parts of six major league seasons with the Braves, Tigers, Rays and Nationals.

Braves’ Pierzynski: ‘Rah-rah speeches’ aren’t the answer

By David O'Brien - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

WASHINGTON – With the Braves mired in one of the worst skids in franchise history, catcher A.J. Pierzysnki was asked Friday if he and other veterans would do anything to help try to get the largely inexperienced team out of its funk.

“Try to give a lot of these kids a little bit of confidence,” said Pierzynski, 38. “I mean, baseball’s one of those games where rah-rah speeches don’t really work. It’s not about trying harder; sometimes you’re (better served) trying easier. You just try to be a professional and go about it, play as hard as you can, and hopefully the guys follow that lead.”

In other words, you aren’t likely to find Pierzynski gathering the troops around the middle of the clubhouse and shouting expletives at them, or turning over a table and throwing chairs to get their attention, even when the team’s lost nine in a row and 15 of 16, as the Braves had before Friday.

“Yeah, it’s not football,” Pierzynski said. “It’s not basketball. It’s not where, if you give more effort you get better results. This is a game about consistency, about routine, about doing what you do and relying on what you’ve done to get ready for the game, to carry over into the game. Getting emotional – yeah, sometimes, every once in a while, a guy needs to get mad just to get some frustration out. But at the end of the day you also need to figure out how do you channel your frustration into the game.

“It’s easier obviously when you’ve been around a little bit than when you’re a young guy and you’re new to this. It all gets going real fast and it’s hard to slow it down. That’s one of the things that these guys are learning here on the fly. They’re learning in the big leagues. A lot of older guys got to learn this stuff in the minor leagues, now (some current Braves) are having to learn it here, where the spotlight is brightest. And it’s tough.”

So tough that manager Fredi Gonzalez said Friday a player venting frustration and showing emotion isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“I’ve seen it here, the last couple of weeks,” Gonzalez said. “Sometimes you’ve got to get their attention. And it’s always better when it comes from a peer than when it comes from a coach. Not that we haven’t done it, but it’s better when it comes from a friend, one of your teammates. But it’s OK to get upset, to get mad, to get frustrated. I was a little bit yesterday and I apologize. But if you’ve got any kind of competitive juices in you, you’ve got to get frustrated, you’ve got to get upset.”

After Thursday’s 15-1 loss, the third time that Braves pitchers allowed 15 earned runs in a seven-game span, Gonzalez had much harsher criticism of his pitchers than he’d had previously this season. “The stuff that we’ve been seeing, it’s really unacceptable,” Gonzalez said after the game. “Guys (pitchers) are professional. Major leaguers. Some of these guys have a lot of years playing in the minor leagues. And for them to get hit around like that, it’s not really acceptable.”

It’s been a particularly brutal stretch for the Braves’ patchwork, often-overmatched pitching staff, which has gotten increasingly younger, less experienced and less effective as the season has wore on. Not that the team slump is all on them. The offense has been terrible in recent weeks, too.

The Braves were 1-16 with a 7.70 ERA and 44 runs scored in their past 17 games. They had been outscored 82-20 and posted a bloated 8.55 ERA during the nine-game skid before Friday. Rookie starter Matt Wisler was charged with five hits, seven runs and three walks Thursday and didn’t make it out of the second inning.

Wisler is 0-5 with a 9.49 ERA in seven starts since the end of July, one of several young pitchers who’ve not shown much, if any, signs of positive development as the season has wore on.

With two out in the third inning, the Braves had used three rookie pitchers – Wisler, Sugar Ray Marimon, Andrew McKirahan – who had given up a total of 10 runs, 11 hits, four walks and a hit batter while recording eight outs.

“What can you say?” Pierzynski said. “You just try to give them confidence. There’s not really much you can say. As a pitcher you know, at the end of the day it’s your ball and it’s your game, and you’re throwing the pitches. So you try to just get those guys to relax and enjoy the moment, instead of worrying about getting guys out. I think sometimes they’re so worried about mechanics and other things, what pitches the scouting report says to throw, instead of just throwing the ball and getting the guy out, what they see and trusting their instincts and go with what got them here.”

Worst Braves team in quarter-century could lose (gulp) 100

By David O’Brien

WASHINGTON – One hundred losses. Has a nasty ring to it, doesn’t it?

A 100-loss season is the measure of truly awful performance by a major league team.

I never imagined last winter that it would be possible for these Braves. I didn’t even think a 90-loss season was a realistic possibility. Even after they traded Justin Upton, Jason Heyward and Evan Gattis.

Because they still had the likes of Freddie Freeman, Andrelton Simmons, , Julio Teheran Alex Wood and Mike Minor, and they had added a few good pieces including Nick Markakis, Shelby Miller and Jason Grilli, and they had some good young talent we expected might make an impact as the season wore on.

Well, Minor didn’t make it to the first game of before getting hurt again, Kimbrel was traded on the eve of opening day, Grilli blew out his Achilles before the All-Star break, Freeman had two DL stints in the second half, the Braves stopped scoring runs when Miller pitched, Wood and Jim Johnson and Luis Avilan were traded, as were Kelly Johnson and Juan Uribe and, well, you know the rest. It’s been something resembling a disaster.

It’s all crumbling now. The Braves, after a 42-42 start to their season, have lost 38 of 50 games and have 80 losses with 28 games to go before Friday night’s second game of a four-game series against the Nationals.

Not only is a 90-loss season now seemingly inevitable, but a 100-loss season is also a distinct possibility. The Braves have to do better than 8-20 the rest of the way to avoid a 100-loss season.

This is a team that is 1-16 with a 7.70 ERA and 44 runs scored in its past 17 games. A team that got blown away 15-1 on Thursday at Nationals Park to extend its losing streak to nine games, during which the Braves had an 8.55 ERA and had been outscored 82-20.

That’s remarkably bad, and afterward, Gonzalez’s mounting frustrations, which he had kept private previously,boiled over in his postgame session with reporters.

Asked if perhaps the on-the-job training, aka thrown into the fire, that these young pitchers are getting might be overwhelming some of them, Gonzalez replied: “You know what? They better get used to it. It’s one of those things, there’s no more help. If we feel that they’re our guys and we want them to be our guys, then they’ve got to get over it. They’ve got to go out there and get the big outs, get the big innings, have the big outings. Sooner or later we’ve got to do that. We’ve got to keep running them out there, and they’ll figure it out sooner or later.”

Then he continued, regarding the recent atrocious pitching by the Braves.

“The stuff that we’ve been seeing, it’s really unacceptable,” Gonzalez said. “Guys are professional. Major leaguers. Some of these guys have a lot of years playing in the minor leagues. And for them to get hit around like that, it’s not really acceptable. And you go back and look at the tape – and we will in the morning – it’s a lot of 1-2 pitches over the plate, 0-2, ahead in the count, just not very good pitches. And I know for sure that a lot of the pitching coaches and managers that they’ve gone through in the minor leagues (have taught them a better two-strike approach than that). It’s not good. It hurts. Especially, there’s a way to lose, and today wasn’t one of those days. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Let’s see what happens tomorrow.”

When I asked him as a follow-up whether possibly fatigue with some of the young pitchers is a factor in all the struggles with two outs and/or with two strikes, Gonzalez said, “I don’t know what it is, but if it’s fatigue, just suck it up. If we want to go in there and start bringing up every pitcher in the minor leagues. I’m sure there’s people out there that would like to take an opportunity at it. If it’s fatigue, work a little extra. Really, there’s no… You try to be calm and try to be patient, but sometimes there’s no excuses for that. Whether it’s fatigue or not. It’s not fatigue when you get two strikes. So I don’t buy that.”

The Nationals’ 15 runs broke their single-game record for runs in a home game at Nationals Park, and the 14-run margin of victory was the largest in the Nationals’ 11-year history since the Expos moved to Washington and became the Nationals.

The Braves have not won a road game in more than month. They have a 10-game road skid entering Friday, and they are 2-23 on the road going back to July 8, the fateful day when Luis Avilan coughed up a 5-3 eighth-inning lead when he gave up a three-run homer to Carlos Gomez, and even if Brian McCann had been there to stop Gomez from crossing home plate, it probably wouldn’t have stopped the avalanche of losing that has ensued.

Beginning that day in Milwaukee, the Braves are 12-38 with a 5.63 ERA overall and 2-23 with a 6.25 ERA on the road.

And so, unless they go 9-19 or better the rest of the season, they are going to lose 100 games. This just two seasons after Fredi Gonzalez’s third Braves team won 96 games and the NL East title in 2013.

I’m firmly convinced that top Braves officials knew, when they gave Fredi Gonzalez and his coaches contract extensions on July 17 that run through 2016 with options for 2017, that they were about to trade away any remaining veterans with significant trade value and some younger guys, too. So they gave them the extensions then, because there was no way they’d be able to do it now, with the season figuratively swirling in the toilet bowl.

But I really don’t think those Braves officials believed it could get this bad. Surely not. If they did, they wouldn’t have traded away so many guys and left the team running on fumes, overmatched and unable to even keep their heads above water. Young players, some of them good and full of potential, are getting their heads bashed in now on a nightly basis. This is not good.

The bed is made, however. The Braves will twist and turn in it for the remainder of the season.

And the only compelling question until the offseason – since no, I don’t believe the brass can fire Gonzalez or Roger McDowell after stripping the team of so much talent – is whether or not the Braves can avoid losing 100.

The Braves have a 21-48 road record entering Friday, and have lost all seven games at Nationals Park this season, with three to go. The Phillies (23- 46) are the only other major league team with more than 42 road losses, and the Braves travel to Philly on Monday for a three-game series.

The Braves have a majors-worst run differential of -164, while the Cardinals are +142 and Blue Jays are +197.

So yes, it’s bad and getting worse by the day. The Braves, if they keep up their recent blinding pace of losses, will finish as the worst Braves team in more than a quarter-century. The worst since the 1988 team, which was really, really bad.

How bad? Glad you asked.

The 106-loss Braves in 1988 finished 28-55 on the road. That team went 24-52 after the All-Star break. (The current team will do worse than both of those marks.)

That ’88 team was the last Braves team to lose 100 games, and no Braves team has even lost more than 90 games since the 1989 and 1990 Braves had 97 losses in consecutive seasons. The last 90-loss Braves team was the 2008 Braves (72-90), which was also the only Braves team to finish 20 games out of first place since the 1990 team finished 26 games back. (The current Braves entered Friday 20 ½ games out of first place.)

The 1988 Braves’ leading hitters were 32-year-old Dale Murphy, Ron Gant and Gerald Perry.

Murph hit .226 with team-highs of 35 doubles, 24 homers and 77 RBIs, with a .313 OBP and .734 OPS.

Gant hit .259 with 19 homers, 19 stolen bases, 60 RBIs, a .317 OBP and team-high .755 OPS.

Perry hit .300 – the only Brave with an average as high as .280 — with a .338 OBP and 29 stolen bases.

Andres Thomas (13 homers) was the only other Brave with double-digit homers in 1988.

No Braves starting pitcher had a winning record, and starters Rick Mahler (9-16, 3.69 ERA), Tom Glavine (7-17, 4.56), Pete Smith (7-15, 3.69) and Zane Smith (5-10, 4.30) were a combined 28-58 in 105 games (100 starts). Closer Bruce Sutter had 14 saves and a 4.76 ERA in 38 appearances and gave up more than a hit per inning. They lost 106 games. This Braves team would have to lose 26 of its final 28 games to have that many losses. Despite the last couple of weeks, surely the Braves can’t keep losing at such a stunning rate as to lose 106.

But 100 losses? I never would’ve thought it possible last winter, or this spring, or even a month ago. Now, I do.

It’s possible.

The Braves are building it but will they still come?

By Michael Cunningham

The idea is that the Braves will be an NL contender by the time they move into Cobb Taxpayer Stadium in 2017. The team will win, the fans will flock to the new park through Malfunction Junction and over Boondoggle Bridge, and good times will be back again.

In the meantime, the Braves are on their way to being the worst team in baseball. They are so bad they are damaging their brand. The Braves should be better next season if only because it will be hard for them to be any worse. But unless Liberty Media’s spreadsheets provide cash for free-agent acquisitions and/or John Hart’s prospects grow up quickly, it’s hard to see how the Braves will be any better than mediocre in 2016.

If the Braves don’t produce a good product before the new park opens, will lots of fans still make the schlep to SunTrust Park?

If the history of new ballparks over the past 20-plus years is an indication, the Braves shouldn’t count on it. That’s the takeaway from attendance trends for MLB franchises that opened new ballparks since the Orioles started the boom in 1992 with Oriole Park at Camden Yards (see below if you are interested in the details).

The Nationals, Reds and Tigers saw only modest increases in attendance when they opened their new stadiums because they were bad teams before they opened those new stadiums. It happened to the Reds and Tigers even though they've played 100-plus years in their cities. The Braves don’t have nearly the same generational connection to fans in Atlanta, where sports consumers have repeatedly shown they will only go to games if they like the product.

Braves fans don’t like the product they are getting now, as I’ve heard repeatedly from fans on social media, sports talk radio and friends who manage to corner me to get my take on the bumbling Braves. It was reflected by the multiple empty sections at Turner Field for the last homestand (unless they were filled by Yankees fans). It's not a good look for a team trying to generate excitement for the move to a new stadium.

The Atlanta Braves already have a history of switching stadiums, of course. When they moved from Fulton County Stadium to Turner Field in 1996, the Braves got a modest 13.2 percent bump in attendance. That’s in spite of winning 90 games and the World Series in ‘95 and posting 96 victories and winning the pennant in ’96 (there were only 72 home games in ’96 but the Braves ranked third in NL attendance just like in ’95).

It wasn’t until ’97 (101 wins) that the Braves saw a big spike in attendance, starring a trend of four straight seasons of three-million plus. Surely the hangover from the strike had something to do with that but attendance waned even as they kept winning division titles.

Maybe that happened because Turner Field lost its luster. The Braves probably have a bigger fan base now than they did back then. People who have childhood memories of those glory years now have their own kids. And the Braves say lots of those fans moved to the burbs, and now the ballpark will be closer to them.

I guess all of that will help. But there’s no question the Braves are hurt by the wretched product they are putting on the field now. If it doesn’t get dramatically better in 2016, the Atlanta Braves may once again be looking at a modest increase in attendance when they change parks—a trend that won’t last if they don’t get better, fast.

Details of the analysis (all attendance figures from Baseball Reference)

I looked at team performance and attendance in the two years prior to opening new parks* and compared those metrics in the first year of the new park and two years after. Of the 14 teams in the comparison group, eight moved into their new parks after consecutive losing seasons: the Orioles (1992), , Tigers (2000), Pirates (‘01), Brewers (’01), Reds (’03), Padres (’04), Nationals (’08) and Marlins (’12).

The Orioles saw a 40 percent attendance bump in the first year of the new park. After finishing that year 89-73, they attendance increased again. The Orioles were 63-49 and second in attendance when a strike ended the ’94 season early.

The Tigers increased their attendance by 20 percent in the first year of Comerica Park. Another bad performance that season (79-83) led to lower attendance in the second year of the new park (1,921,305) than in the last year of decrepit Tiger Stadium (2,026,441).

The Pirates had a 41 percent bump in attendance in the first year of PNC Park. After suffering 100 losses that season, attendance the next year was just barely better than the final season in Three Rivers Stadium; the year after that it was less.

The Brewers saw a 79 percent increase in attendance in their first year at Miller Park. They lost 94 games that year and lost about 842,000 in attendance the next season, when they lost 106 games (and when I was on that Brewers beat). The Reds drew 27 percent more in attendance in their first year in their new park. They kept losing until attendance plummeted to near Riverfront Stadium levels within two seasons.

Padres attendance surged by 49 percent in their first year at Petco Park. They won 87 games that year, 82 games in 2005 and 88 games in ’06 as attendance slowly decreased but stayed respectable.

The Nationals increased attendance by 19 percent in the first year in their new park. They lost 100-plus games that year and in 2009, by which time attendance was less than the final year at RFK.

Finally, the Marlins saw a 46 percent increase in attendance in the first year at Marlins Park, but they’d been last in attendance for the previous two years so improvement was relatively easy. They still ranked 12th in the NL that season, when they lost 93 games, and by 2013 attendance was only four percent better than it was in their final year playing in the Dolphins’ football stadium.

*I didn’t include the Indians or Rangers in the comparison because the 2004 strike-shortened season was their first in their new parks, not did I include Rockies because Coors Field opened a year later. I also excluded the Diamondbacks because they were a first-year expansion team in their new park in 1998. Finally, the Cardinals and Yankees weren’t included because their attendance only decreased because they opened smaller ballparks—they still ranked among the highest-drawing teams in the majors.

Braves prospect report: Rio Ruiz

By Carroll Rogers Walton - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

For all the prospects the Braves have stockpiled in trades, and all the progress they’ve made over the summer, there was Rio Ruiz. The third-base prospect who came with Mike Foltynewicz and Andrew Thurman from the Houston Astros for Evan Gattis, struggled from the outset with the , and then he struggled some more.

But before 2015 could count as a lost season, the 21-year-old from Covina, Calif., found something to build on. From Aug. 14-30, he hit in 15 consecutive games, when he had gone some months without getting 15 hits — (13 in April, 11 in May, 17 in July).

For this two-week span, buoyed by a playoff race for the Southern League South, Ruiz batted .362 (21-for-58), with seven doubles, two homers and 11 RBIs to raise his season average from .216 to .238.

“I tried to just play mind games with myself and say, ‘Go out and have fun, man,’” Ruiz said. “‘You’re struggling right now, things aren’t going your way, but you’re going to get one thing that goes your way. Something is going to click and you’re going to go from there.’ I just kept battling and kept working.”

The scouting reports tout Ruiz as a left-handed hitting third baseman with great power potential. Starting Double-A at age 20 — he turned 21 on May 21 — and with a new team, Ruiz admittedly tried to take that too far.

“Of course, new organization, you try to do too much,” Ruiz said. “I got in a little bit of trouble with that early. I tried to hit the ball 500 feet, and that wasn’t really me. I tried to be someone that I wasn’t.”

What he is is someone with a natural stroke to the opposite field. Left center to left field is his comfort zone, from years of honing his left-handed swing in batting practice with his father, Rudy Ruiz.

“He’d always yell and preach, L7, L7, L7, which is a line drive to left field,” Ruiz said. “So that allowed me to see the ball a lot better a lot deeper and let my hands work. Whenever I get in a struggle, I get back to the basics the best I can, and what he and I did.”

Director of player development Dave Trembley said the Braves have seen marked improvement in Ruiz’s ability to pull the ball as well, especially over the past six weeks. Ruiz pulled a ball for a three-run homer Aug. 28 in a 7-1 win over Biloxi.

“He can hit and everybody feels as if he’s finishing the season on a real positive note,” Trembley said. “And we’re all looking forward to continued improvement with him. He has a natural stroke to left center, but he can pull the ball. He uses the whole field, which I think is a real good thing for a young player.”

One thing both the Braves and Ruiz have been pleased about throughout is his progress at third base. Even when the bat wasn’t cooperating, Ruiz was working on his first-step reaction, his angles, and his alignment based on where the catcher was setting up.

“If offspeed comes, then you can cheat toward a guy pulling the ball,” Ruiz said. “Or if a lefty is going the opposite field towards you. I worked on that a lot and first-step quickness, getting to the ball and beating balls to the spot.”

Ruiz grew up an Angels fan in southern California and loved Darin Erstad. But there was a player on TV his dad always pointed out that he should watch and learn from: Chipper Jones.

“It was cool to see somebody I grew up watching and seeing — I now play for that organization as well,” he said. As mentally tough as this first year with the Braves has been, Ruiz is glad to be finishing strong.

“Things weren’t going my way early, and they weren’t going my way even in the middle of the season,” Ruiz said. “But I had to keep going and keep fighting as best as I could. It’s all about how you finish, not how you start. I’m a firm believer in that, and I’m going to keep working.”

The Sports Xchange

In 10 innings, Braves lose 10th straight

By Sports Xchange

WASHINGTON -- Pinch-hitter Michael A. Taylor blasted a three-run homer with no outs in the bottom of the 10th inning off reliever Brandon Cunniff to give the a 5-2 win Friday against the Atlanta Braves.

His homer also scored center fielder Bryce Harper and first baseman Ryan Zimmerman, who singled to start the 10th. It was the first career walk- off homer for Taylor, who has been hobbled by a sore leg and missed the past few games.

Washington (69-65) is now 11-3 this year against the Braves (54-81), who have lost 10 in a row, 11 straight on the road and have not won a road game since Aug. 2 at Philadelphia.

Washington tied the game at 2-2 in the last of the ninth on a two-out single by Matt den Dekker, who had entered the game to play left field. Reliever Peter Moylan retired second baseman on a grounder for the final out of the ninth with two runners on.

Pinch-hitter Nick Swisher had a one-out RBI single against reliever Drew Storen in the eighth to give the Braves a 2-1 lead.

One night after collecting 18 hits in a 15-1 win, the Nationals had just two hits in the first five innings then left the bases loaded in the sixth after three singles in a row.

Atlanta starter Julio Teheran went six innings and allowed one run on five hits but was not involved in the decision.

The winning pitcher was Jonathan Papelbon (3-1), who pitched the ninth and 10th. The losing pitcher was Matt Marksberry (0-3), who gave up the single to Harper in the 10th and then was pulled.

Atlanta first baseman Freddie Freeman had three this and has 17 hits in 31 at-bats this year against Washington.

Center fielder Cameron Maybin had two hits for the Braves. Left fielder Jayson Werth, Harper, Zimmerman and third baseman Yunel Escobar had two hits for the Nationals.

Harper hit a long solo homer to right to give the Nationals a 1-0 lead in the first inning. It was the 32nd homer of the year for Harper, who entered the game third in the league even though he had not gone deep since Aug. 21.

The Braves tied the game on an RBI infield single off Roark in the third by catcher A.J. Pierzynski.

Roark, who allowed one run and five hits in 4 1/3 innings, was making his first start for the Nationals since June 28 at Philadelphia and his seventh overall this year. He has pitched out of the bullpen in 28 games for Washington.

NOTES: The Nationals called up RHP Tanner Roark from Double-A Harrisburg to start against the Braves. Roark, who won 15 games as a starter last year, had made two minor league starts in order to build up his pitch count after spending most of the season in the bullpen for the Nationals ... Washington OF Bryce Harper did not have an official at-bat Thursday but walked four times, scored four runs and drove in one. According to Elias Sports Bureau, he is the first player since 1920 (when RBIs began being kept as a statistic) to perform such a feat. ... Braves RHP Shelby Miller (5-12, 2.56 ERA) will start on Saturday against Washington LHP Gio Gonzalez (9-7, 4.13). ... Atlanta 1B Freddie Freeman began Friday ranked 11th in the National League with an average of .351 (27-for-77) with runners in scoring position.

Have Braves hit rock bottom?

By The Sports Xchange

WASHINGTON — The Washington Nationals won the National League East title in 2012. The Atlanta Braves captured the title in 2013, then the Nationals rebounded to win it again last year. The Braves came to Washington on Thursday to begin a four-game series with the Nationals, who are trying to catch the . But the Braves are now 20 1/2 games back of the Mets and 14 games back of the Nationals after a 15-1 loss Thursday as Atlanta used eight pitchers and gave up eight walks while collecting just two hits.

Fredi Gonzalez, the Atlanta manager, admitted this series in early September has a different feel for his team.

“They are battling for the playoffs. It is a little different. I am not going to lie to you,” Gonzalez said. “We need to get back into the winning ways somehow. Hopefully we can shake hands. We have not done that in a long time.”

Atlanta has not won a road game since Aug. 2. The Braves have now lost 10 road games in a row and are 21-48 away from home this year.

“It’s not really acceptable,” Gonzalez said of his pitching staff after the loss. “It leaves a bad taste in your mouth.”

The Braves have lost nine in a row overall after losing the last eight of the recent homestand.

Associated Press

Taylor's pinch-hit HR lifts Nationals over Braves, 5-2 in 10

By HARVEY VALENTINE (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nationals manager Matt Williams passed up his first few opportunities to use outfielder Michael Taylor on Friday night.

When he did send him in, it worked to perfection.

Taylor, nursing a sore right knee, had a pinch-hit, three-run homer in the bottom of the 10th inning to lift the Washington Nationals to a 5-2 win over the Atlanta Braves on Friday night.

The Nationals pulled five games behind the NL-East leading Mets, who lost 6-5 in 11 innings at Miami.

''I want to play, so I was standing at the bat rack the whole game, trying to get in the game, just to be able to get in there and get a chance,'' said Taylor, who was out of the lineup for a third straight game and wanted to make sure Williams knew he was available.

''I'm just standing close, stretching, things like that.''

Bryce Harper, who hit his 32nd homer in the first inning, singled off Matt Marksberry (0-3) leading off the 10th. Reliever Brandon Cunniff came on and Ryan Zimmerman grounded a single up the middle, sending Harper to third.

Taylor batted for Jonathan Papelbon and hit a 1-0 pitch high deep to left-center. A sacrifice fly or base hit would have been enough, but the ball sailed over the wall for his 14th home run and he was mobbed at home plate.

''Trying to keep my head on a swivel,'' he said of the celebration. ''I took two Gatorade buckets and after that I was good on the water and Gatorade.''

Williams said: ''We were trying to stay off him if we can to give him one more day. There was debate whether if the inning was different and he got on base whether he was actually going to run.''

Washington tied the score on Matt den Dekker's RBI single with two outs in the ninth. Yunel Escobar doubled to lead off the inning against Aradys Vizcaino, and pinch-runner Trea Turner scored on den Dekker's hit.

Papelbon (3-1), in his longest outing of the season, pitched two scoreless innings.

''It's not going to bet one game. It's not going to be a series here or there,'' Papelbon said of the playoff chase. ''It's going to be us being able to keep the momentum we have right now and carrying that throughout the rest of the season to the last game of the season.''

Freddie Freeman had three hits for the Braves, who have lost 10 in a row for the first time since 2006.

Atlanta took a 2-1 lead in the eighth when Freeman doubled against Drew Storen and scored on pinch-hitter Nick Swisher's one-out single.

Atlanta starter Julio Teheran continually pitched out of trouble, allowing a run and five hits and four walks in six innings.

''I like everything about the ballgame except the ending,'' Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. ''We didn't walk anybody (in the 10th). They got three hits to beat us. We fought back.'' Tanner Roark, pitching in place of Stephen Strasburg, was making his first start since June 28. He was lifted with the bases loaded and one out in the fourth inning with the score tied 1-1.

After walking four times without a swing Thursday, Harper's first at-bat Friday night ended when he Teheran's 3-2 pitch into the seats in right center to make it 1-0.

The Braves tied it in the third. Nick Markakis went first to third on a single to deep left by Freeman, and scored when Pierzynski hit a dribbler toward third and beat the throw at first.

BRYCE HARPER AND BARRY BONDS

Williams hit behind all-time walks and home runs leader Barry Bonds and manages Harper, who's shown both power and patience at the plate this season. Asked to compare the two Friday, Williams said: ''There's similarities there. It's apples and oranges of course, but Bryce is making those steps he needs to make. And he's been patient enough in viewing it as 'okay, I'm not going to expand my zone. If they chose not to pitch to me, then I've got somebody behind me who can pick it up.'''

A.J. PIERZYNSKI TIES BILL DICKEY

With his third-inning single, Atlanta's A.J. Pierzynski tied Hall of Famer Bill Dickey (1,969) for 10th place all-time in hits among catchers.

TRAINER'S ROOM

Nationals: Taylor had an MRI on Thursday night and was out of the lineup for the third straight game. ''All the results were good,'' manager Matt Williams said. . RHP Aaron Barrett underwent successful Tommy John surgery on his right elbow Thursday. ''He's on the road to recovery now,'' Williams said. ''It's disappointing for him certainly, but he's a warrior and he'll work hard to get back.''

UP NEXT

Atlanta: RHP Shelby Miller (5-12, 2.56) is winless in his last 19 starts, but allowed one run in seven innings of a 4-0 loss to the Marlins on Monday. Miller is 2-1 with a 1.72 ERA in six career starts against Washington.

Nationals: LHP Gio Gonzalez (9-7, 4.13) is 5-3 with a 3.32 ERA in 11 starts this season at home. He's lost his last three decisions.

Braves-Nationals Preview

By TAYLOR BECHTOLD (STATS Writer)

While other players may also be chipping in, Bryce Harper and Ryan Zimmerman are taking on the leading roles in the Washington Nationals' sudden uprising.

The star sluggers look to stay hot against the historically bad Atlanta Braves on Saturday night when host Washington tries to tighten the NL East race with its fourth straight win.

With Friday's opener tied in the 10th inning, Harper and Zimmerman delivered singles ahead of Michael Taylor's walk-off, three-run homer in a 5-2 victory. The Nationals (69-65) had evened the game in the ninth on a pinch-hit, RBI single by Matt den Dekker.

Harper went 2 for 3 with his 32nd home run to raise his average to .396 over his last 15 home games. The right fielder is 4 for 9 with 11 walks in 21 plate appearances over his last five overall.

"He's been patient enough in viewing it as 'OK, I'm not going to expand my zone," manager Matt Williams said. "If they chose not to pitch to me, then I've got somebody behind me who can pick it up.'''

Zimmerman picked up two more hits as Washington won for the ninth time in 11 games at Nationals Park. The first baseman is batting .404 with seven homers and 23 RBIs over his past 12 overall.

The Nationals now hope to trim more off their deficit after closing to within five games of the first-placeNew York Mets, who suffered an extra- inning defeat at Miami.

Harper and Zimmerman might have a tough time extending their torrid stretch since they're a combined 4 for 20 lifetime off scheduled starter Shelby Miller (5-12, 2.56 ERA).

Miller, however, is trying to avoid a 20th consecutive winless start, a run of futility that is the longest by a Braves pitcher since the team moved to Atlanta in 1966. The right-hander is 0-11 with a 3.13 ERA while getting one or no runs from the offense 13 times during the streak.

"I've never seen anything like this," manager Fredi Gonzalez told MLB's official website. Miller had been 2-0 with an 0.85 ERA in five meetings versus Washington before giving up five runs over five innings in a 6-1 loss June 30. He'll have to be careful with Jayson Werth, who is batting .370 during a six-game hitting streak, and Yunel Escobar, who is hitting .464 in his last eight.

The Braves (54-81) have lost 10 straight and 17 of 18, 11 in a row on the road, and eight consecutive games in Washington. They haven't lost 11 straight since 1982 and last dropped 12 in a row on the road in 1942, when the franchise was in Boston.

An anemic offense has been the biggest problem for Atlanta, which is batting .219 and averaging 2.2 runs during the 10-game skid.

Gio Gonzalez (9-7, 4.13) will try to keep them scuffling as he looks to build on only his second quality start in his last eight. After posting a 10.22 ERA in dropping three straight, he allowed three runs over six innings but did not factor in Monday's 8-5 loss at St. Louis.

The left-hander had been 0-7 with a 5.32 ERA over an eight-start stretch versus Atlanta before giving up two runs over seven innings in a 9-2 home win May 8.

Freddie Freeman, who went 3 for 4 with two doubles Friday, had a pair of doubles versus Gonzalez in May and he's 9 for 27 with two home runs lifetime off him.