ATLANTA _ On a night when the Braves had five rookies in the starting lineup, a graybeard catcher put one of the youngsters, starter Lucas Sims, in position to pick up his third major league win. But that was before one of the ugliest bullpen meltdown in the recent history of a team that's had far more than its share of such incidents.
Arodys Vizcaino entered the game in the eighth inning with bases loaded and the Braves up 2-1 against the Nationals and proceeded to issue three consecutive walks. Yes, three walks, two of them on four pitches.
Those walks forced in the first three runs of a six-run inning that sent the Nationals to a 7-3 win against the Braves at SunTrust Park, where a stunned crowd of 25,054 didn't know whether to boo, laugh or cry as the inning disintegrated.
Vizcaino was removed after facing three batters, all three of the runs he walked in charged to Jose Ramirez, who started the inning, faced four batters and gave up a single, double and four-pitch walk to Jayson Werth to load the bases before turning the ball over to Vizcaino and watching the game completely implode.
Vizcaino walked Daniel Murphy on four pitches to bring in the tying run, walked Ryan Zimmerman to bring in the go-ahead run, and walked Anthony Rendon on four pitches to give the Nationals a 4-2 lead and bring manager Brian Snitker from the dugout to make another pitching change with the inning now engulfed in flames.
Rex Brothers replaced Vizcaino and gave up a two-run single to Adam Lind and an RBI single to Michael Taylor before recording the second out of the inning. In a span of nine batters, the Braves had gone from leading 2-1 to trailing 7-2.
Reduced to footnotes were the 28th home run of the season by Freddie Freeman and the career-high 16th homer from catcher Kurt Suzuki, the aforementioned graybeard, whose leadoff homer in the fifth inning gave the Braves a 2-1 lead.
It was a lead they looked ready to protect after A.J. Minter pitched a perfect sixth inning with two strikeouts and Sam Freeman pitched a perfect seventh inning. This after Sims worked five innings in his eighth major league start and first in 2 { weeks, after making four bullpen appearances in the interim.
It was an inauspicious beginning when leadoff hitter Turner homered on the first pitch thrown by Sims, who had given up two homers in three innings in his most recent start Sept. 2 at Chicago.
But Sims struck out the next batter, Werth, to begin a stretch in which he retired 13 of 14 batters including six strikeouts. The only batter to reach in that span was Taylor on a two-out single in the second inning, and Taylor was promptly thrown out attempting to steal second base by Suzuki.
Sims limited the Nationals to three hits and one run with two walks (one intentional) and six strikeouts.
After striking out Rendon and Lind to start the fifth inning, Sims got into a bit of a jam after Michael Taylor reached on an infield single and went to second on Dansby Swanson's throwing error on the play. Sims walked the next two batters, Matt Wieters intentionally and pitcher Gio Gonzlaez most unintentionally.
But with bases loaded, he got Turner on a ground-out to end the inning. It would be the last time a Braves pitcher would make a good pitch with bases loaded Wednesday.
The win assured the Nationals of a third consecutive season-series win over the Braves, giving Washington a 10-8 lead entering Thursday's series and season finale between the teams. The Braves lost 29 of 38 games against Washington during the 2015-2016 seasons and came into this week's series in an 8-8 tie with the Nationals after Atlanta took two of three last week at Nationals Park.
Freeman tied the score with a two-out solo homer in the bottom of the first inning off left-hander Gonzalez, who retired the next 10 batters including six by strikeouts. That streak ended when Suzuki homered leading off the fifth to give the Braves a 2-1 lead and give him a new career high for home runs.
It's an unexpected career high, considering Suzuki was signed to be part of a platoon with Tyler Flowers, who has made 79 starts to Suzuki's 65 in what has been among the majors' most productive catching tandems.
Suzuki, who'll be 34 on Oct. 4, hit his 16th homer in his 281st plate appearance. His previous best was 15 homers in 614 plate appearances for Oakland in 2009 at age 25.
In 36 games since the beginning of July, Suzuki has hit .296 with 12 homers, 25 RBIs and an OPS near .950.
