Game Recap: Atlanta Braves Get Swept By Nationals “We weren’t real pretty to watch today”
By Jeff Schafer
The Atlanta Braves were shutout by the Washington Nationals 7-0 Thursday afternoon in the final game of this three-game series. Washington swept the Braves and have now defeated them in eight straight games…ugh!
The game started off poorly for the Braves…in the bottom of the 1st inning, Denard Span hit a line drive to right field. Instead of cleanly getting the ball in, Nick Markakis misplayed the grounded and Span advanced to second base. He later scored in the inning and the Nationals never looked back. This was the first error that Markakis has had in 398 consecutive games…this is the MLB record.
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By days end, the Braves totaled three errors. Kelly Johnson and Jace Peterson with throwing errors and the play Markakis had in the outfield.
“We didn’t give the young Wisler a chance,” Fredi Gonzalez said. “We put him in situations where he was always in trouble and never gave him a clean inning. We weren’t real pretty to watch today.”
The errors didn’t help, but Braves starting pitcher Matt Wisler didn’t have his best stuff. He only lasted four innings, giving up nine hits, six runs (four earned runs) with zero walks and zero strike outs.
“When you have a young kid on the mound, you have to give him every opportunity to get him through clean innings until he gets that experience of cleaning up mistakes and errors. His last start we did a great job of playing defense, but we didn’t do that today.”
Wisler only threw 75 pitches on Thursday and 46 were for strikes. Either he didn’t have his sharpest stuff on the mound or the Nationals just did their homework from his first start.
“I’ve just got to watch this and learn from it,” Wisler told reporters. “I’ll think about it a little bit tonight, move on and get better. These guys (major leaguers) are the best hitters in the world. I wasn’t on today. They beat me.”
The Braves offense totaled six hits and only four off starting pitcher Doug Fister. Fister lasted seven complete innings and didn’t allow a single run. This was the third game in a row against the Braves that the Nationals starting pitchers didn’t allow a run.
More fuel to the fire? The starting pitching staff has gone 39.1 innings without letting anyone cross the plate.
Even more fuel? In the past six games Washington’s starting pitchers have gone 43.1 innings pitched, allowing 24 hits, one run, six walks, 38 strikeouts, a 0.21 ERA, and an opponent’s batting average of .162.
“You can’t give a good club like this extra outs and opportunities because they are going to take advantage of it. They have really good pitching and have some guys that are pretty hot right now at the plate.”
The Braves offense has really struggled without Freddie Freeman. The Braves have only scored 13 runs in the seven games that Freeman has missed…six of those runs came in one game against the Mets.
Freeman’s return couldn’t come any sooner. The Braves training staff gave Freeman a platelet-rich-plasma (PRP) injection to hopefully minimize the length of his stay on the disabled list.