News
Early outbursts pave way to Braves win
Bats rough up rookie Taylor to back Lowe's shaky start
By Alden Gonzalez / MLB.com
05/06/09 11:40 PM ET
MIAMI -- Perhaps all the Braves' offense needed to wake up was a 24-year-old rookie.Going into their two-game series against the Marlins on Wednesday, Atlanta's hitters had been in a collective slump. But while facing off against Graham Taylor, they went to work early and held on late in an 8-6 win in front of 12,725 at Dolphin Stadium.
The victory came against a team that outscored the Braves, 21-7, while sweeping them in mid-April and on the heels of losing 14 of their past 20 games.
Who knows, maybe it finally marks the beginning of something positive.
"Winning streaks start under the most innocent of circumstances, and hopefully this starts one," said third baseman Chipper Jones, who went 2-for-3 with a double and two RBIs.
The Braves knocked around the soft-throwing, left-handed Taylor for eight runs -- four of them earned -- on seven hits in 2 1/3 innings to give starter Derek Lowe the win despite what he called a "disappointing" performance.
The top three hitters in Atlanta's batting order combined to go 5-for-11 with five RBIs and three walks, and Garret Anderson -- playing just his second game since coming back from a strained left quad -- put up a team-high three RBIs.
"Things haven't been going our way very well," Braves manager Bobby Cox said. "Tonight, when you score that many runs, things are going to go your way."
Lowe, who gave up four runs in five innings when he last faced the Marlins on April 15, needed 102 pitches to get through his five frames this time, in which he gave up six runs on seven hits and three walks.
"This was an offensive victory," Lowe said. "For all the people that watch the game, it was a struggle. But you look at our road trip coming up, and we needed victories any way we could get them.
"My name may be attached to it, but that was a very poor game."
The 35-year-old right-hander got nailed in the right foot off a Hanley Ramirez line drive with one out in the third inning. But after being checked out by Cox and head athletic trainer Jeff Porter, Lowe remained in the game and was fine afterwards.
"It's going to be OK, but it didn't feel real good when it hit him," Cox said.
The Braves' offense, which came in batting .253 while dropping seven of its past nine, couldn't be stopped early on.
Atlanta got things going on an RBI groundout by Anderson in the first inning and came up with four runs in the second. In a frame that saw nine batters come to the plate and Taylor throw 37 pitches, Omar Infante drove in a run with a sacrifice fly, Yunel Escobar followed up with an RBI single and, after Jones walked, Anderson knocked in two with a base hit to center field.
The Braves then added three more in the third, when they forced Taylor out of the game. Dan Meyer then came out of the bullpen for Florida and gave up an RBI single to Infante and a two-run single to Jones to give Atlanta a five-run lead.
"We'll take it any way we can get it right now," Jones said. "I know that Taylor is filling in for [injured regular starter Andrew] Miller, but the bottom line is our job is to go out there and beat whoever shows up. We had limited knowledge of him, but I thought we had good at-bats, good game plans against him. You could tell at certain points he struggled with his release point and struggled consistently throwing strikes. And when he did throw strikes, we hit him. That's what you got to do."
But the Marlins answered back in the fifth, when Jorge Cantu hit an RBI double, then came in when John Baker did the same thing to make it a two-run game.
Cantu was just coming off being named National League Player of the Week, and he finished Wednesday's game 3-for-4 with a home run and five RBIs.
"I'm going to call up [Tim] Wakefield in Boston to come up with a knuckleball or something next time I face him, see if that will work," Lowe joked.
Florida was threatening again in the bottom of the sixth, but after Buddy Carlyle put runners on first and third with nobody out, he retired the side to preserve the lead.
"It was the turning point, as far as the victory goes," Cox said. "First and third, no outs, you figure they'd get at least one, maybe two, and now the game is tied. That was a gutty performance by Buddy."
Peter Moylan and Rafael Soriano then pitched scoreless seventh and eighth innings to set it up for closer Mike Gonzalez in the ninth, who retired the Marlins in order with two strikeouts to end it.
Said a laughing Lowe about the effort from the Braves' relief corps: "I told our bullpen guys, when you go five innings -- give up [seven] hits, six earned runs -- and they go in there and shut them out for four innings, it shows you how my stuff was."
Alden Gonzalez is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
