For eight innings, this one had all the signs of a tight, low-scoring grind. Then the Braves’ offense finally cracked it open, and the bullpen turned a comfortable night into a nervous one before Atlanta escaped with a 7-6 win over the Padres.
Martin Perez set the tone early with four scoreless innings, allowing just one hit while issuing four walks and striking out three. Dylans Dodd and Lee each followed with a scoreless inning of their own, and Didier Fuentes kept the shutout going before running into trouble in his second frame, when he surrendered an especially long home run that tied the game at 1-1.
Atlanta’s bats were mostly scattered through the night, even though six different Braves finished with multi-hit games. The breakthrough came in the eighth, when the lineup finally strung together enough traffic to bat around and bury the Padres.
It began quietly enough. Eli White, pinch-hitting for Yaz, grounded out.
Then the rally started to build: Dubon singled, Jarvis doubled, Hicklen doubled, and Drake worked a seven-pitch walk to force Wandy Peralta out of the game. Ozzie then dropped a ball into right field, Matt Olson followed with a fly ball to left that landed between the left fielder and third baseman, and although the umpires ruled correctly that it was not an infield fly, the inning kept rolling.
Michael struck out, but Austin punched a single up the middle, and Dom Smith, batting for Eli White, capped the burst with a Baltimore chop over the first baseman’s head. By the time the dust settled, it was 7-1.
With that cushion, Walt turned to Raisel and sat Victor Mederos, Monday’s hero. But Mederos didn’t have it this time.
His sinker kept missing badly to the outside, and the Padres started squaring up his cutter. Fernando Tatis then lined a ball to center that Michael tried to attack with a diving play, but it slipped under his glove by an inch and rolled to the wall for a two-run triple.
Mederos was done, and Raisel had to come back in anyway.
That still wasn’t the end of the scare. Raisel gave up a two-run homer, trimming the lead to one and putting the game back on edge. But he settled in from there, striking out the next two hitters to close it out and leave Atlanta with the win.
It had the feel of a game that could have spun away in a hurry. Instead, the Braves got the big inning they needed and then held on just long enough to finish the job.
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