Whalen shakes off a rough start to take the W in his Atlanta Braves debut
By Colby Wilson
It started poorly. But things got a lot better for the Braves.
Robert Whalen sure didn’t look like much coming out of the gate.
In his first MLB appearance, Whalen’s first big-league inning was rough by any objective standard. The burly righty gave up four runs to the Pirates before he could earn three outs and was all over the place to boot, hitting Starling Marte with a pitch, giving up a massive home run to Matt Joyce to score Marte and Gregory Polanco, then subsequently loading the bases following a David Freese single and walks to Jordy Mercer and Eric Fryer. He even uncorked a wild pitch that scored Freese with Jeff Locke—the pitcher—in the batter’s box.
As this was unfolding, I kept thinking, “This guy doesn’t blow anybody away—if he can’t locate his pitches, he’s toast.”
Then he started locating his pitches, and it was readily apparent why the Braves were more than willing to make him the lucky 13th starting pitcher to toe the slab in 2016. Following that harsh welcome to the Show, Whalen settled down and allowed precisely one hit, a second-inning Jung-ho Kang double, and got some help from his bats to earn his first big-league victory, an 8-4 win that gives Atlanta five W’s in its last eight outings.
It wasn’t all peanut butter smoothies the rest of the way for Whalen—he opened the third inning with walks to Joyce and David Freese and plunked poor Marte again an inning later—but he was able to work out of the jam both times with ease. His cutter looks really nice, and once he shook the jitters off, it seemed like he could locate really well.
Now usually, a four-run deficit has been a death knell for the Braves, as happens when you average 3.4 runs per game. But this game was different. This game had some hitting, gosh-dangit. Timely hitting, the kind that slowly chips away at a four-run deficit and then slowly adds to a lead.
Anthony Recker started the party in the second, grounding out to score Nick Markakis, who led off the inning with a double. 4-1.
In the third, Freddie Freeman doubled home Adonis Garcia, who collected two hits on the night, including a one-out double. 4-2.
In the fourth, Recker wrecked a Jeff Locke pitch HIGH off the wall in left, missing a home run by inches but scoring Ender Inciarte with a double. 4-3.
The Braves plated the tying and go-ahead runs in the fifth. Freeman led off the frame with a walk, followed by newly-acquired Matt Kemp’s first hit as a Brave, a double Marte couldn’t make a sliding grab on. A Markakis sac fly would score Freeman and an Ender Inciarte single would bring home Kemp to put the Braves in front.
Garcia would keep up his stellar work of late—he drove in pinch-hitter Jace Peterson on a sixth-inning single, his 10th RBI in the last month, and Kemp would later drive in Gordon Beckham on a sac fly to put the Braves ahead by three runs after six.
The Pirates couldn’t keep the Braves off the board in the next frame either. After a leadoff single by Inciarte—part of a 3-for-4 day from him—Erick Aybar hit a stand-up triple to score Inciarte with ease and make it 8-4.
Erick Aybar. Stand-up triple. That’s how you know you’ve been living right.
Four Braves—Garcia, Inciarte, Recker and Aybar—wound up with multi-hit nights, with Inciarte (hitting sixth) and Aybar (eighth) picking up three apiece. After Whalen’s departure, the bullpen offerings of Ian Krol, Mauricio Cabrera, Chris Withrow and Jim Johnson didn’t allow a hit to the Pirates over the final four innings.
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The series wraps Thursday with a 7:10 p.m. (ET) first pitch from the Ted. Tyrell Jenkins and Ryan Vogelsong will toe the rubber for their respective clubs. It will be Vogelsong’s first start since a scary May 23 incident when he was hit in the face by a pitch.