Braves Escape Washington With One Win

After losing their last four games, the streaky Braves put together a couple good innings to beat the Nationals 5-1.

• The biggest story is the continued dominance of Kris Medlen.  He walked one and struck out seven in seven innings, while also getting 50% groundballs.  This outing drops his season ERA below 2.00 and his starting ERA to 0.84.  Many of us wanted to see Medlen in the rotation from the beginning, but I guess late is better than never.
• Martin Prado broke the scoreless tie with a 2-run double to right-center field.  The Nationals basically gave the Braves the three in the ninth on two errors and a wild pitch.  A .265/.278/.353 team line is not exactly the most inspiring line.
• Ian Desmond had the two highest leverage plate appearances of the game, grounding into a fielder’s choice in the 6th and grounding into a double play in the 8th.  With those two leverage values around 5.00, he amassed a WPA of -0.35 for the game.
• Both Michael Bourn and Dan Uggla were not in the starting lineup, though each appeared in the game.  Bourn got an RBI single and stole a base, leading to a run.  Uggla had the unfortunate luck of getting Tom Gorzelanny‘s three best pitches of the inning consecutively, ending in another strikeout.