Braves beat Nats on comeback for the ages
Washington – The weekend was already supposed to be wild – with four games in three days against the first-place Nationals – but then Friday night happened.
The Braves trailed by nine runs through five innings against Stephen Strasburg, but came back to take the lead in the ninth inning. They’d managed only one hit in their first 13 at-bats with runners in scoring position, but watched Chipper Jones make history with a two-run single to become the all-time RBI leader by third basemen.
They rallied for two runs against the Nationals’ struggling closer Tyler Clippard, only to watch their closer Craig Kimbrel snap a streak of 20 straight saves by giving up a home run to Danny Espinosa.
And still, the Braves won 11-10 on an RBI bloop single by light-hitting shortstop Paul Janish in the 11th inning, creating the kind of memory they haven’t made since a seven-run comeback against Baltimore on June 27, 2004 or the Brooks Conrad walk-off game against the Reds on May 20, 2010.
“I still can’t believe it,” said Chipper Jones, who passed Hall-of-Famer George Brett with 1,598 RBIs along the way. “I mean 9-0. That’s never happened to me since I’ve been here.”
The last time it happened, Jones had just finished his freshman year at Pierson (Fla.) Taylor High School. Ken Oberkfell was playing third base for the Braves, and he drove in Glenn Hubbard with the winning run on a bases-loaded walk for a 13-12 over the Padres on June 7, 1987.
With their efforts in the four-hour, 21-minute rain-soaked game, the Braves pulled within 2 ½ games of the Nationals and get two more shots at them in a day-night doubleheader on Saturday. They won for only the third time in nine meetings against the Nationals this season.
“I saw a team that knows that this is a big series even though they were down nine runs,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said when asked about the mood in the dugout. “There was no way we were just going to go down without a fight.”
Brian McCann hit a two-run homer in the sixth to start a four-run inning. The Braves scored four more in the eighth, highlighted by Jones’ two-run single to break his tie with Brett for career RBIs by players whose primary position was third base.
Then a walk and a hit batsman by Clippard set Michael Bourn up for a two-run triple in the ninth to give the Braves a 10-9 lead.
“Once we started chipping away, everybody was of that mindset, hey let’s go out and have fun,” Jones said. “’We’re getting our butts kicked right now. Let’s catch them in hits and see what happens.’ The guys on the bench stayed upbeat all night and once they started giving us a crack here and there to be able to chip away, you could slowly feel the momentum building on our side.”
That lasted right up until Kimbrel, who was tied for the major league lead with 28 saves, blew his first save since May 2 against the Phillies, on only his second home run allowed all season.
But the Braves had one last comeback in them still.
Janish, who’d been 2-for-17 in his first five games with the Braves, drove home Dan Uggla from third base with a bloop just out of reach of drawn-in shortstop Ian Desmond for his first RBI as a Brave.
“I was telling (first base coach) Terry (Pendleton) when I got on base, ‘Really crazy game,’” said Janish, who was playing shortstop for the Reds the day Conrad hit his walkoff grand slam in 2010. “But it counts, right? All that matters is we end up with one more than them.”
Uggla, had his first multi-hit game in almost two months, since going 4-for-5 in Miami on June 5. He went 3-for-4 with two walks and scored four runs including the game-winner, after reaching on an infield hit, taking second on the wild throw he drew from third baseman Ryan Zimmerman, and advancing to third on a passed ball.
Fittingly, he made a diving play at second to finish the game too.
“For me it was fun again,” said Uggla, who’d hit .108 in his previous 34 games. “Getting some hits and getting on base and making plays. That’s baseball. That’s when baseball’s fun.”
Chad Durbin pitched the final of seven innings by the Braves bullpen to lock down the win. Tommy Hanson had given up a pair of three-run home runs to Michael Morse and Ryan Zimmerman and lasted only four innings. It was the first time he’d given up eight runs in a game since Conrad’s walked off in 2010. Just like that day, his teammates kept coming back.
“You’ve got to give credit to the guys for grinding,” said Eric Hinske, who had a pinch-hit double in the four-run sixth. “Never say die, right?”
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101 comments Add your comment
SFBravesFan
July 21st, 2012
1:50 am
Wow, great win!
KnightInATL
July 21st, 2012
2:00 am
Mark it down. 7/20/2012: The red-letter day of the 2012 season for the Braves. This is the game we will look back on and say, “The magic began here.”
reckingball
July 21st, 2012
2:01 am
That was a fairly good comeback.
JC Boscan III
July 21st, 2012
2:07 am
Great game — Durbin saves a game. Uggla gets hits. Janish’s pop fly might’ve been the shortest bloop hit in years. But, a win’s a win! GO BRAVES!! (on the other hand, with Hanson’s dud tonight, our starting 5 is looking shakier as we go along………) Too bad we can’t steal Felix Hernandez from the Mariners!
Who Me?
July 21st, 2012
2:18 am
Stunning game to watch. Gotta give it to O’Flaherty and Durbin tonight, great work out of the pen. Hanson sucked. Amazing game guys, congratulations to both Janish and Uggla for the coming out party, nice work.
Note to FW: Get Greinke
Spud
July 21st, 2012
2:21 am
Let’s hope the Nat’s go back to playing like the Expos. Even when Uggla struggles, it seems like he is always in the middle things, a spark plug. I’m glad he is a Brave.
Tnbravesfan
July 21st, 2012
2:25 am
Can we please get another starter now FW? Surely this shows you what kind of team this can be with one or two more arms!
BravesFanInNashville
July 21st, 2012
3:14 am
Starters getting through 7 innings with the Braves in a position to win is the key to the rest of the season. We obviously can’t survive many games using 6 or 7 pitchers. We need to give the bullpen a chance to be effective late in the season and there will be nothing left of them if they need to use them this much. I hope the Braves can get a starter before the deadline that will either stay a few years or won’t cost Minor, Delgado or Teheran to get.
No Flag Since Lemke
July 21st, 2012
4:03 am
It’s not just us – the Nats used six pitchers as well. Can see both teams asking one starter to take one for the team either today or tomorrow.
BravesFanForever
July 21st, 2012
4:05 am
It’s “…all-time RBI leader FOR a third baseman” since this stat is only for third baseman.
Earl Scruggs was the man
July 21st, 2012
4:30 am
This….this is good stuff!!!! 9-0….dang….Kimbrel will blow this off like it did not happen, hopefully Uggla will play to the back of his card at some point this season. Remember how he turned it around last season? Man, get him going and a good starter and some help for the ‘pen we have us a legit shot at going deep into October (assuming we stay relatively healthy). This game electrified me and I am just a fan. I can’t imagine what it must have felt like for players! When they play like this it kinda makes me want to go to the Ted and watch ‘em play even more (and pay $157 for a hotdog :p). Way to go Bravos!!!!
Buzz 2011
July 21st, 2012
4:38 am
@Earl Scruggs…” Uggla will play to the back of his card”… What does that mean? Does his card show 215 average?
JoshTown
July 21st, 2012
6:15 am
Ah-maz-ing.
lpt nation
July 21st, 2012
6:38 am
@ spud i am glad you are happy but the numbers will tell us the braves would be in a much better place if we had kept infante last year and this year.But that deal is done another great move by wren that nobody likes to talk about . But as a braves fan i am happy for the great win happy for uggly ya ya ya YOU CAN’T STOP THE CHOP DID YOU HERE IT IN DC LAST NIGHT
longtimefan
July 21st, 2012
6:43 am
The Uggla comeback starts now.
Braves beat Nats on comeback for the ages LINK | Atlanta Braves Dugout Online | Atlanta Braves Blog
July 21st, 2012
6:45 am
[...] The rest of the article can be found here: Atlanta Braves [...]
Rabid Dawg
July 21st, 2012
6:51 am
9-0 after 5 innings and there I am…dropping f bombs all over the house..cursing the team up and down. “I’ll be #$%^%$ if I am going to watch any more of this $%& awful &%%&!!” Well I must say….put a little bbq sauce on the crow and its not too bad!
Brave New World
July 21st, 2012
7:07 am
longtimefan July 21st, 2012 6:43 am The Uggla comeback starts now.
Amen, LTF.
Brave New World
July 21st, 2012
7:07 am
A win or the ages.
Let's Go
July 21st, 2012
7:07 am
Great win because no matter how many bad things there was for the Braves (Hanson, Kimbrel, lots of runners LOB early) none of them is as bad as what the Nationals are going through this morning and that is losing a 9 to nothing lead after 5 to the team right behind you in the standings. Sheets and Delgado need to pull some innings today to give that bullpen some rest.
Brave New World
July 21st, 2012
7:08 am
Let’s try “A win for the ages.”
Brave New World
July 21st, 2012
7:09 am
Down 9-0 against Strasburg – yeah, we had them right where we wanted them. Pesky Nats.
dickelsby
July 21st, 2012
7:11 am
Hope I can play golf today as well as the Bravos did last night!!!!!!!!!
bucket
July 21st, 2012
7:16 am
Great team win last night. I must thank my brother-in-law for the text in the 8th inning or I would have never seen it because I had given them up for dead. However, the Braves have got to find a starter that will not poop their pants in a big game. Here’s hoping Sheets and Delgado can eat some innings today.
Dwight
July 21st, 2012
7:20 am
“What the Hell”?
Joey
July 21st, 2012
7:30 am
I turned the channel after the 5th and 9-0. Watched “Aliens” for the 10th time.
Boy do I feel stupid . . .
joe
July 21st, 2012
7:35 am
lost in the great win is the mi9serable performance by “Tommy” roving once again to be the most overated starting pitcher in the national league. He keeps being talked about like a No 1 starter as he goes out with hs 89m ph fastball and getting crushed. Joke
andy dandy
July 21st, 2012
7:38 am
I may be wrong, but it appears Chipper’s RBI’s the year he played LF for the Braves are included in the total being called the most by a third baseman. Did Brett, Schmidt, etc. ever play another position for an extended period.
74bravesjersey
July 21st, 2012
7:56 am
“RESILIENCE”!
Bob the Blogger
July 21st, 2012
8:08 am
Andy, you are correct, those couple hundred games Chipper played in left are counted. If you only count the RBIs when they played third, Chipper is second behind Schmidt. That makes that “record” kind of flawed from a technical perspective.
I think the lifetime .300 ave, .400 on-base pct, and .500 slugging pct with (soon to be) 1600 RBIs are more impressive, although they are not records.
Winchester
July 21st, 2012
8:13 am
Hanson’s delayed pitching machine delivery does not fool any good hitting team. Once again, he got lit up in predictable fashion.
Please pray for him to be traded in the up coming package.
LaMarr
July 21st, 2012
8:13 am
Chipper’s record is for players “whose primary position is/was 3B”. Brett was used as a DH toward the end of his career, if my memory serves me correctly, so it’s not surprising that Schmidt would be the RBI leader while playing 3B (I don’t remember him playing anywhere else). Remember that Chipper also filled in at SS for a while one year too.
D man
July 21st, 2012
8:17 am
Dang it, I always turn off the TV on the great games. I didn’t see Sid slide against the Pirates in the playoffs either. Dough!!!
Steven
July 21st, 2012
8:19 am
DOB
Was that Paul Janish’s home run swing?
rekcor49
July 21st, 2012
8:27 am
Big win as realistically we need to get at least a split in the four game series. Three of four would be nice but the reverse would be detrimental to chances of catching the Nationals. The Nats are for real.
rekcor49
July 21st, 2012
8:27 am
Big win as realistically we need to get at least a split in the four game series. Three of four would be nice but the reverse would be detrimental to chances of catching the Nationals. The Nats are for real.
rekcor49
July 21st, 2012
8:27 am
Big win as realistically we need to get at least a split in the four game series. Three of four would be nice but the reverse would be detrimental to chances of catching the Nationals. The Nats are for real.
rekcor49
July 21st, 2012
8:27 am
Big win as realistically we need to get at least a split in the four game series. Three of four would be nice but the reverse would be detrimental to chances of catching the Nationals. The Nats are for real.
rekcor49
July 21st, 2012
8:27 am
Big win as realistically we need to get at least a split in the four game series. Three of four would be nice but the reverse would be detrimental to chances of catching the Nationals. The Nats are for real.
rekcor49
July 21st, 2012
8:27 am
Big win as realistically we need to get at least a split in the four game series. Three of four would be nice but the reverse would be detrimental to chances of catching the Nationals. The Nats are for real.
Charles
July 21st, 2012
8:31 am
This game is what makes baseball so entertaining and worth watching. Great comebacks make watching a routine game so interesting. Doesn’t always work out this way but a great night to be a Braves fan.
Julio Santanar
July 21st, 2012
8:32 am
Yeah Hinske,maybe if you and Uggla hit higher than. 100 Braves would have won a lot of games they lost.
phil
July 21st, 2012
8:34 am
Fire FG!!!
Julio Santanar
July 21st, 2012
8:35 am
Fathead Hinske has two pinch hit rbis all year and gets interviewed?
phil
July 21st, 2012
8:39 am
Fat head?
It’s his body that’s fat, beavis….
Denny LeMaster
July 21st, 2012
8:48 am
Everyone is calling this a great game. Maybe after McCann’s dinger it was. But, what were you thinking before that? The pitching is really a question mark for this team going forward. Hanson, while good at some points, when he goes bad, he goes really bad. Smashed for 8 earned runs. You simply cannot have your top pitchers giving up 8 runs in 4 innings in the dog days of the race. The Braves have to stabliize their pitching and soon or they are simply going to drop out of the race. They need to get a starter or two and even a bat. They cannot continue to win 11-10. They have to have another starter.
74bravesjersey
July 21st, 2012
9:02 am
The nats are for real, but what a comeback, alot of energy to muster for both teams, & this is high caliber ball, but hopefully they know we didn’t lay down for ‘em like we’ve done in the past. I enjoy a little “Get Back” & against the team you’re chasin’ oh can’t be any sweeter. Keep fight’n Bravos! Dig down Deep for some inner strength for the double dipper today guys. Shock the world! Shock em’ all. Especially in politician Land. Good read DOB!
double
July 21st, 2012
9:04 am
Pitching ,pitching,get another starter,Liberty be liberal,give the Braves some of that windfall$$$$$.
Sammy
July 21st, 2012
9:06 am
Hanson should be 5-10. He’s been very fortunate and no one should consider him as an ace of the staff.
Ward
July 21st, 2012
9:16 am
Hanson should be forced to sit between starts with Smoltz and Maddox, for example, and talk pitching mechanics and the “mental” game. (Duty of a pitching coach??) His mental prowess and pitching mechanics (holding men on base for example) are in need of an upgrade. He is the “weak” link whereas everyone else has youth, injuries, bad luck on their side.
Vermont 39
July 21st, 2012
9:18 am
Whine when the BRAVES lose and Whine when they WIN…
Give it up already…THAT WAS A PHENOMENAL COMEBACK VICTORY!!!!!!
GO BRAVES!!!!
Alex
July 21st, 2012
9:33 am
almost everybody braves supporters blaming FG on every foul play and i am last to defend him. but what about our pitching coach. everybody got worse. huddy suck, delgado suck, hunson suck, jj stink to high heaven, minor also suck. amazing braves with this stuff still in race. my point first fire man responsible for pitchers then evaluate manager.
reckingball
July 21st, 2012
9:36 am
That was not a very good throw that Uggla made for the final out of the game.
Amber Girl
July 21st, 2012
9:37 am
I told you that we did not need a trade. I love my Braves Go Braves!!!
Mikey
July 21st, 2012
9:41 am
Can’t wait to see what Ben Sheets can do against a solid lineup as a follow up to a great debut and the momentum of an epic come back victory against the best pitcher in the NL. Uggla, despite his struggles at the plate has displayed excellent defense ending the game with a spectacular play. Is Freddie Freeman not the best defensive 1b we have ever had?
Ps. Mike Schmidt played over 150 games of his career at 1b.
reckingball
July 21st, 2012
9:41 am
It’s all McDowell’s fault, anything bad that happens to the Braves is McDowell’s fault.
It’s a wonder that Hanson’s arm didn’t fall off of his body, when McDowell visited him on the mound.
Bad Roger, bad, bad, Roger.
reckingball
July 21st, 2012
9:42 am
Leo would never let anything bad happen to the Braves.
He is the greatest coach to ever live.
reckingball
July 21st, 2012
9:46 am
None of the Braves pitchers ever had more than one run scored against them in an inning, when Leo was the coach.
Amber Girl
July 21st, 2012
9:47 am
@reckingball I don’t understand. Don’t you love our braves. I am new to following Braves(1 year). Maybe fill me in on what is going on. I love my Braves! Go Braves!!!
No. 1 Braves Fan
July 21st, 2012
9:47 am
Wow!! Only one fire Fredi comment so far. Did he do anything right last night? (sarcasm)
Skeezix
July 21st, 2012
9:51 am
Great comeback win. Can it be a turning point in the season? Is the Nats bullpen coming apart?
Need to win at least one today.
Mikey
July 21st, 2012
9:54 am
Reckingball: it was a heck of a lot better then Zimmerman’s throw to get Uggla. I’m sure the conditions of the field and the fact that he made an incredible diving stop and had to quickly recover had nothing to do with the not so perfect throw. Would love to play baseball for you coming off the field after making a spectacular game ending play and be criticized for the throw.
BravesWin
July 21st, 2012
9:54 am
“It ain’t over ’til it’s over”…Yogi was right, and that’s part of what makes baseball so much fun. Regarding Hanson: he will never be a top pitcher unless he quits sending pitches in via Western Union.
reckingball
July 21st, 2012
10:00 am
I would like to see Freeman stretch a little bit better at 1st base, than what he is doing now, maybe he could take some yoga classes.
Also, that grounder that he snagged late in the game….I don’t think he played that ball properly, he needs to get in front of those grounders.
reckingball
July 21st, 2012
10:03 am
As I said last night, that was a fairly good comeback, not great, but it was OK.
But, to get down to the truth of the matter, the only real reason that the Braves won, is that they somehow, scored more runs than the Nationals.
1991 braves
July 21st, 2012
10:03 am
Nats let their foot off the gas. Who could blame them. Up by 9 runs and thunderstorms on the way. I’m sure they figured the game would get called after 5 innings. But even with the lucky win, the braves showed once again how weak their starting pitching has become. You want win many games with your starter going less than 5 innings and giving up 6 or 7 runs. And that is what the braves get from one of their 5 starters a couple of times each time through the rotation. Hudson gave up 6 or 7 his start before last, blowing a 5 run lead. Hanson is a had case, and his fast ball has lost velocity, so all he throws now is a hanging curve ball. Then you have 3 question marks every start after these 2. J.J looks like he is back to his old form before he was sent to AAA. Minor should be in AAA, and then we have the guy with the miracle arm trying to save the braves. LOL!! With an E.R.A. of over 4.00 this staff is what it is. Below average. And to think they will make the playoffs with this rotation is dreaming. But sometimes dreams come true, like last night. But if they somehow back into the playoffs, it will get ugly with this rotation. Who would be the 3 starters in the playoffs? Hudson, Hanson, and Sheets. That would be almost as embarrassing as the collapse last season.
jim
July 21st, 2012
10:11 am
If the Braves were to trade for another starter, who should he replace in the rotation? Minor and Delgado are not the two worst pitchers in it.
reckingball
July 21st, 2012
10:11 am
It’s all Roger’s fault. Leo would not let those starting pitchers be as bad as you say they are.
1eyedJack
July 21st, 2012
10:13 am
Did the pressbox catch fire last night? Maybe that’s the one that gets the Bravos over the hump.
1600 RBIs is something, no matter what position you played when you got ‘em. Chipper will be missed.
SLBReb
July 21st, 2012
10:17 am
One of the best wins I have seen in I do not know how long. Players never gave up and played despite Freddie G. and his knucklehead decision to have Ross swing away in the 9th with two on and no outs. I mean we came all the way back and Freddie threw chance to the wind. What an incredibly bad hire. Fortunately Bourne saved his hide. Please Wren go get a starting pitcher, reliever and Upton to put in LF. We have a chance but we have to make some upgrades especially with this manager.
Yogi Berra
July 21st, 2012
10:23 am
Reckingball are you drunk this morning…damn man give it a break.
Quack Quack
July 21st, 2012
10:25 am
@rekcor49 Do you always stutter like that?
Great come from behind win. A tip of the cap to the entire TEAM. Way to have some fun.
Lets do it again today. The nats need to be put in their proper place, behind the BRAVES!!!
GO BRAVES!!!
jim
July 21st, 2012
10:31 am
Frank Wren: (go get a SP, RP, LF)
Here Ryan, here Ryan, here boy!
Here Justin, c’mon boy, come here!
Come here big fella!
No. 1 Braves Fan
July 21st, 2012
10:32 am
Reckingball: you are funny. love your veiled sarcasm.
Carl Farvman
July 21st, 2012
10:32 am
Great to put together an offensive display,but coming back from a large deficit doesn’t happen much. The broader issue is that we have 1 fewer bonified starting pitchers than we thought we had at season’s start.
Heywardisthemannow
July 21st, 2012
10:37 am
Unbeilievable win, what an effort by the lineup to get us back in the game. Great effort by the bullpen to keep us in the game. This team doesn’t roll over and die like other teams we have had in the past, they keep banging until the last out.
Big Red needs to have a good second half and bounce back from these two lousy starts he’s had. We need him down the stretch.
Yogi Berra
July 21st, 2012
10:40 am
All was good but Hanson..that worries me. But Wren will do something!
Barkin' Dog
July 21st, 2012
10:41 am
@ Mikey
July 21st, 2012
9:41 am
Can’t wait to see what Ben Sheets can do against a solid lineup as a follow up to a great debut and the momentum of an epic come back victory against the best pitcher in the NL.
I’m worried about the infamous letdown that often occurs after a great first game win… especially considering the embarrassment of the Nats’ last game. Sheets can register a great win (and points for his comeback award) if he notches a win today. And with the Bravo’s bats coming around (see Uggla), that may not be hard to do.
GO BRAVES – Sweep with 3 more wins for 1st Place!!!
BraveMan
July 21st, 2012
11:01 am
Great game? It will be if the Bravos can capitalize on it. It could be a divisional momentum changer. However, if they go out today and are swept in the DH, last night’s great comeback won’t matter. What’s the story with Hanson? He is touted as such a great young pitcher, but he seems to fall apart easily. Braves young pitchers need some guts. They are still a far cry from Avery, Maddox, Glavine and Smoltz.
jim
July 21st, 2012
11:03 am
No need to have Prado squeeze that extra run home. Fatboy new our shortstop could rip one in extra innings.
Mikey
July 21st, 2012
11:04 am
Ben looked like he did 4 years ago, with a great breaking ball and excellent location (unlike what we saw last night from Hansen). Washington will be at a disadvantage seeing him for the first time and Jackson is no Strasburg.
Just checked Mike Minors stats for his last 4 starts which he pitched 18 innings giving up only 7 earned runs. Maybe he has made the adjustments that gets major league hitters out and he is our only left handed starter. He stays!
Clydesdale
July 21st, 2012
11:11 am
buzz do you know baseball? Veteran players usually end the season hitting close to their career numbers. Carlos Ruiz wont bat.350 and Uggla wont bat .220. Hot hitters and cold hitters get back to who they are by seasons end. All you Uggla haters go away. Fredi haters what do you think of “running him back out there”. fredi knows Uggs will turn it around. How can you hate a guy who hustles as much as Pete Rose?
Keith
July 21st, 2012
11:36 am
I stayed up for it.
As a matter of fact, I went to McCray’s with intention of watching the whole game while my wife was out of town all weekend. Then when it became 9-0 and even 9-2, I left. Listened to some on the radio…until they had bases loaded in the 8th. I picked up the rest from there.
Unbelievable comeback. Remember the 2010 team? Reminds me of that year…but it was crazier than that. Strasburg on the mound. Wow.
Yes, if they go on to take 3/4 and do well in the 2nd half, we will remember last night’s game.
Buddy Landel
July 21st, 2012
11:42 am
lpt nation
July 21st, 2012
6:38 am
@ spud i am glad you are happy but the numbers will tell us the braves would be in a much better place if we had kept infante last year and this year
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Omar Infante- .313 OBP……8 HR…….33 RBI
Dan Uggla .356 OBP…..12 HR……46 RBI
Unless you think batting avg. is more important than OBP, Uggla has had a better year.
Dirty Dawg
July 21st, 2012
11:43 am
Like plenty of others I had given up on em and started watching the ‘news’ about he tragedy in Colorado…it didn’t take long with that before I knew that gettin ‘killed’ by the Nats was gonna be better than that…so I went back to see – but only after subjecting myself to some other programs with which I had little interest – whateas goin on. Nine to four…well, better but not much…but I stayed, and thank goodness I did. Thanks for one of the most enjoyable outcomes ever, on anything. Now I have to decide if my watching was a jinx and I needed to stay away altogether…Naah (how does one spell Naah?)
PiersonBrave
July 21st, 2012
11:45 am
Congratulations Chipper.
Great game lastnight! Woke the family when they took the lead with my cheers.
Keep it going guys. Time to steamroll these Gnats.
RWill
July 21st, 2012
11:45 am
@rekcor: Heard ya the first time
Could it be that Tommy Hanson is wearing down again this year? Shoulder may not hold up to a full season anymore. As a top prospect he was a power pitcher who was supposed to throw low to mid 90’s. Now he sits at 88-90. Been falling an mph a year since coming up. That sounds like wear and tear on the shoulder. The Braves should see what they could get from him in a trade, but not this year. They need the best he can give them the rest of the year for the pennant chase.
RWill
July 21st, 2012
11:58 am
That being said, that was a great win and could be a turning point between these two teams. As said earlier, when someone has a track record as Uggla does, you do keep “running him out there”. I remember back in the late 90’s I think, when both Maddux and Glavine had ERA’s over 4.50 closing in on the All-Star break. Anyone have a problem with keeping on “running them out there” then? Should Bobby Cox had stopped sending Chipper Jones out there a few years ago when he was hitting .230 all year?
NORRIS CHUCK
July 21st, 2012
12:02 pm
Nationals Designate Xavier Nady For Assignment
By Mike Axisa [July 21 at 9:24am CST]
The Nationals have activated Xavier Nady off the DL and designated him for assignment, the team announced. The move allows the club to add John Lannan to the roster so he can start one game of today’s doubleheader.
Nady, 33, had been on the shelf since late-June with a wrist issue. He hit just .157/.211/.275 with three homers in 109 plate appearances for Washington this season, including a .176/.222/.353 line against left-handers. The Nats signed Nady to a minor league contract during Spring Training.
Ken Stallings
July 21st, 2012
12:15 pm
Big, huge, dump truck load of guts! I took my sons to the local premier of Dark Knight Rises, but saw the game long enough to see the team go down on the two homers and figured it was a lost cause last night. Got back from the theater to see the shocking final score!
One hopes this is a shot in the arm because the other big story of the game is that Dan Uggla went 3-4. So, perhaps that finally gets him back on track!
Historical kind of victory for the Braves!
jim
July 21st, 2012
12:15 pm
I was not the jim who posted that last comment about Fat Boy. There has been another Jim posting here from time-to-time, but using a capital J. I hope the other jim will go back to the upper case J or some other distinguishing change before I have to resort to posting something so outrageously stupid that the other jim will not want to be associated with it and leave me my identity.
Earl Scruggs was the man
July 21st, 2012
12:23 pm
@ Buzz … you know exactly what it means, so if you want to go around being a pessimist why should it bother the rest of us?
ijudgenot
July 21st, 2012
12:23 pm
RW Uggla is no where near being in Chipper’s league as a hitter. The statements ends by Chipper and Uggla after the game were informative though. Both said that after they were down by 9 they said “let’s just have some fun”. Uggla is putting too much pressure on himself to supply righthanded power so he is swinging for the fences trying to hit home runs at every at bat. Yesterday he just relaxed and had a “see the ball, hit the ball” approach and it paid off. The ” run him out there everyday” approach by Fredi is adding to not subtracting from the pressure on him. Why not give him one or two days off a week like Chipper until he sees the team Cain win without his home runs and then he can relax and use the same approach as yesterday.
jim
July 21st, 2012
12:24 pm
Need a big effort from Sheets today. Let’s hope he is efficient and has 100-110 pitches in that reconstituted right arm. It would also be great if we could get into the Nats pen early.
Largo
July 21st, 2012
12:40 pm
Mikey,
Freeman is good and he’s going to get better. Just a note. . .Casey Kotchman, even though not much of a hitter, played 123 games at first base for the braves without making an error.
Earl Scruggs was the man
July 21st, 2012
12:46 pm
@ Largo… 123 games w/o an error? I did not know that!
RWill
July 21st, 2012
1:00 pm
@ijudgenot: I didn’t say Uggla was as good as Chipper was then. But he’s been good enough long enough that you “run him out there” with the exectation that he gets back to his career averages. Which, by the way, he hit a few of them last year, even after one of the worst starts ever. He’s hitting .223. His career average is .253. It’s not like he’s expected to hit for a high average. Also, you start benching/sitting/sending down an established player, you mess them up further. When has that ever worked?
Braint
July 21st, 2012
1:40 pm
Rckingball: “A fairly good comeback last night…” It tied to biggest comeback in franchise history. Plus it was against the tem we are chasing, in their ballpark. Some people just don’t understand the game.
lpt nation
July 21st, 2012
3:18 pm
@ BUDDY LANDEL batting avg is the most important part of that equation put 60 points on uggly’s avg and the braves have 5 to 10 more wins don’t misunderstand i want him to do good the OBP is related to his inabilty to get a hit and looking to walk when every possible
dean
July 21st, 2012
4:08 pm
100th