ATLANTA _ In the penultimate game of the Atlanta Braves season, Aaron Blair showed a large and enthusiastic home crowd why he was such a highly regarded prospect, while Freddie Freeman and Nick Markakis supplied the power element that's been a significant part of Atlanta's second-half offensive resurgence.
Freeman and Markakis homered and Blair pitched the best game of his difficult rookie season, striking out a career-high 10 batters while walking one in six-plus innings of a 5-3 Braves win over Detroit at Turner Field, where 40,124 turned out for the next-to-last game before the joint is closed for baseball and the home team moves to Cobb County.
Freeman's two-run homer in the fourth inning gave the Braves a 2-1 lead and Markakis added a solo homer in the sixth for the Braves, who've won 11 of 13 games and 23 of 37 to equal their 2015 wins total (67).
Blair (2-7) had been 1-4 with a 9.00 ERA and 12 homers allowed in 37 innings over his past eight starts before Saturday, when suddenly he looked like the guy who was a consensus top-60 prospect in all of baseball before the season. The big sinkerballer allowed four hits and two runs, leaving the game after hot-hitting Justin Upton's leadoff homer in the seventh cut the lead to 3-2.
Blair struck out seven of the 14 batters he faced through four innings, including two strikeouts in the first and fourth innings and a perfect three-strikeout second inning. But it was that third inning that was problematic, beginning with a leadoff walk of No. 7 hitter Jarrad Salalamacchia that would come back to haunt Blair, as leadoff walks often do.
"Salty" went to second on a Zimmermann sacrifice, then scored on Ian Kinsler's two-out double, the first hit allowed by Blair.
After the Tigers got within a run in the seventh on Upton's homer, rookies Dansby Swanson and Mallex Smith triggered a two-run Braves seventh when Swanson hit a leadoff single and Smith followed with a pinch-hit bunt single.
After an Ender Inciarte sacrifice bunt, Adonis Garcia's two-run single scored Swanson and Smith for a 5-2 lead.
The Tigers threatened by loading the bases in the bottom of the seventh against Mauricio Cabrera, who gave up a single and two walks without retiring a batter. But Chaz Roe, one of the Braves' most impactful midseason pickups, came in to strike out dangerous Miguel Cabrera for the first out and then induced an inning-ending double play that was started by a sensational diving stop by shortstop Swanson, who drew thunderous applause as he left the field.
After hitting just 27 home runs in 64 games during their awful 18-46 start to the season, the Braves have hit 95 homers while going 49-47 in the past 96 games. With Saturday's win, they've equaled their 2015 wins total.
Freeman's 34th homer of the season was one of his more impressive drives, considering the location of the full-count pitch: it was about a half-foot below the bottom of the strike zone.
Daren Willman, director of baseball research and development for MLB.com, said on Twitter that the pitch was only about 16 inches off the ground and the lowest pitch that Freeman ever hit for a homer.
It gave the Braves a 2-1 lead and gave Freeman 83 extra-base hits, four shy of Chipper Jones' Atlanta franchise-record 87 extra-base hits in Jones' 1999 National League MVP season.
