Jace Peterson was the walk-off hero for the Braves today, as his single in the eleventh inning brought home Alberto Callaspo to beat the Brewers 3-2.
Even though today's game ended up going the Braves' way, the Brewers seemed ready and willing to pick up right where they left off on Friday night. Any ideas of Shelby Miller repeating his performance from Sunday were immediately put to rest when Carlos Gomez led off the game with a double. Any hopes of a shutout performance were also dashed when Ryan Braun roped one up the middle to bring home Gomez for Milwaukee's first run.
Things stayed at 1-0 until the fourth inning, which is when the Brewers struck again. After putting out the first two batters of this frame, Shelby Miller ran into trouble when it came to getting the final out of the inning. A walk and a single set the table for .155 hitter Martin Maldonado. Improbably, the 15 wRC+ hitter delivered his eighth RBI of the season to extend the Brewers lead to two.
The Braves joined the scoring party in the fifth inning, and the rally was started by (who else but) Shelby Miller. With one out, Miller rapped a liner down the line and made it to second base without much of a problem. Apparently, Miller had a doubles virus inside of him, and the bug spread to Cameron Maybin and Freddie Freeman because those two each hit doubles of their own. Both were of the RBI variety, and they were enough to tie the game at two.
The next few innings were marked with a lot of good defense (including a rare 1-2-3 double play) and some solid pitching (including a good effort from Luis Avilan and the return of everyone's favorite Brewer: Will Smith.). As it turned out, nine innings weren't enough to decide this one, so the game ended up going to extra innings tied at two.
After the Brewers squandered a scoring chance in the tenth inning, the Braves earned a shot at scoring in the eleventh inning. Alberto Callaspo started the rally by walking with one out, and then things got bizarre during Andrelton Simmons' at-bat. Simba slapped a 2-2 pitch right up the left field line that would've probably rolled to the wall if it had a chance. It didn't have a chance because Simba's luck in this situation was so rotten that the ball deflected off the ump and into the infield. So, a potentially game-winning extra base hit was nullified due to bad luck. Those are the breaks.
However, things went the Braves way immediately afterwards. Fortunately, Simba and Callaspo made it to their respective bases safely, and that eventually set the stage for Jace Peterson to try to become tonight's hero. With the count full and two out, Peterson was able to loop one into left center for a base hit. Callaspo easily scored, and it was walk-off time in Atlanta.
So, it may have taken longer than anybody anticipated, but in the end, the Braves got the job done. Naturally, having Shelby Miller add another strong outing to his growing list of positive performances definitely helped matters, but seeing the Braves win in this fashion was just pleasant and an excellent response to Friday's awfulness. Now, the Braves will have a shot at taking three out of four in a series, which we will always take.
<iframe src="http://www.fangraphs.com/graphframe.aspx?config=0&static=1069032&type=livewins&num=0&h=450&w=450&date=2015-05-23&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=2015-05-23&team=Braves&dh=0&season=2015">FanGraphs</a></span>