Willams Perez Stymies Phillies To Stop Atlanta Braves Home Slide
By Colby Wilson
Perez twirls a masterpiece to give Braves an elusive home victory
On April 19, 2016, the Atlanta Braves defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers 8-1 to open a three-game series at Turner Field. Since then…
- Steph Curry became the first unanimous MVP in NBA history
- Prince passed away
- The Mariners went 15-5
- The Phillies (!) went 13-5
- Laremy Tunsil’s Twitter and Instagram happened
- Beyonce’ dropped ‘Lemonade’
- Radiohead dropped ‘A Moon Shaped Pool’
- Drake dropped ‘Views’
- Ted Cruz dropped out of the running for the Republican Presidential nomination
- Hamilton was nominated for every award you can ever think of, ever
- Mike Tirico left ESPN
- Skip Bayless left ESPN
- Alden Ehrenreich was tabbed to play ‘Young Han Solo’
- More Jerry Sandusky stuff came out, sadly
- Harriet Tubman was tabbed to become the face of the $20 bill
I could go on, but you get the gist; it’s been a pretty busy 22 days. Absent from that list was the phrase ‘An Atlanta Braves home win,’ but that all changed Wednesday night, with the Braves posting a 5-1 victory over the Phillies to snap an 11-game losing streak at the Ted.
Wednesday night’s game featured an unlikely hero. Earlier in the day, I was discussing some baseball things with some baseball people when news broke that Jhoulys Chacin had been dealt to the Angels and Williams Perez would be summoned from Gwinnett to make the start Wednesday against the Phillies. When asked to describe Perez, I characterized him as a ‘Quadruple-A sixth starter’; he’s not quite good enough to make a quality big-league rotation, but he’s probably too good (and at this point, too experienced) to languish on the farm.
Wednesday night, against a Phillies team that had been on a tear of late, Perez brought his A+ game. He mixed a tailing fastball with good life and a dancing change-up, only making one mistake—a high fastball that Ryan Howard was able to extend on and drive—over the course of a sterling eight-inning, two-hit start.
From the first pitch, Perez was immaculate—he sat down 12 straight to start the game, forcing Chip Caray and Joe Simpson to tiptoe around the notion that he was a mere 15 outs from immortality. That never materialized, but Perez pitched as good as he ever has and that was all he needed.
6. 5. 17. Final. 1
That’s because for once, the offense came through. They never got the big inning, but staked Perez to an early lead, scoring runs in each of the first three innings thanks to a Kelly Johnson single and sac flies by Nick Markakis and AJ Pierzynski. A #FREEBOMB in the home half of the fifth answered Howard’s big fly in the top half and as good as Perez was throwing, the (should be back-to-back doubles) single and advancement by error from Gordon Beckham (!) and the double by Erick Aybar (!!!) in the eighth were just icing on the cake.
Of particular note, Freddie Freeman has become what Braves fans expected him to be. Freeman is heating up in May – his slash line for the month of May is now .364/.447/.727 with three home runs and an OPS of 1.175. After a 3-for-4 night against the Phillies on Wednesday, he’s now hitting .390 with four homers and a 1.235 OPS in his last 12 games.
As Braves fans, we probably shouldn’t get accustomed to eight-inning starts from Williams Perez (although he went deep in his previous start for Gwinnett as well), but the rotation, at least, has been encouraging of late. Since May 1, we’ve seen Julio Teheran (7.0 innings, nine strikeouts, two hits against at Chicago, May 1), Matt Wisler (eight innings of one-hit ball against the Mets, May 3) and now Perez have given Atlanta excellent starts over the last 11 days and with the offense still languishing, the Braves will have to capitalize on exceptional outings like Perez’s Wednesday night start.
Next: Who is the Real Julio Teheran?
Our long national nightmare has officially ended. Thursday, the Braves go for their first series win at Ted Turner Field since sweeping St. Louis to close out the 2015. It will be a battle of the young guns, with 23-year old Vincent Velasquez going for the Phitin’ Phils and 23-year old Aaron Blair toeing the slab for Atlanta. First pitch is slated for 7:10 p.m. (ET).