Despite his season long struggles, Fredi Gonzalez has made the effort lately to get B.J. Upton in the lineup in hopes of getting him going for the playoffs. Whether that will happen or not remains to be seen, but on the final night of August, the elder Upton showed another flash of how good he can be when he's going well at the plate.
B.J. racked up four hits in a game for the second time this season, including a walk-off single in the 11th inning that gave the Braves a 5-4 win over the Miami Marlins Saturday night in Atlanta. Facing Ryan Webb with pinch-runner Paul Janish on second and Dan Uggla on first, Upton drilled a single to right center that brought around Janish and ended the game.
While the ending of tonight's game went well for Atlanta, the beginning didn't start so hot. Justin Ruggiano connected on his 16th homer of the season, a two-run shot off of Mike Minor that made it a 2-0 game early. The Braves got one of those runs back in the bottom of the inning on a sacrifice fly by Freddie Freeman off of Jacob Turner.
Giancarlo Stanton struck back in the top of the fourth, launching his 18th home run of the year to up Miami's advantage to 3-1.
In the bottom of the sixth, Upton struck again. This time, he connected on his 9th home run of the season, a line drive shot that brought home Brian McCann and tied things at three. Logan Morrison and McCann traded RBI singles in the seventh inning to tie the game at four.
Win Expectancy
<iframe src="http://www.fangraphs.com/graphframe.aspx?config=0&static=0&type=livewins&num=0&h=450&w=450&date=2013-08-31&team=Braves&dh=0" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" height="450" width = "450" style="border:1px solid black;"></iframe><br /><span style="font-size:9pt;">Source: <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/livewins.aspx?date=2013-08-31&team=Braves&dh=0&season=2013">FanGraphs</a></span>