PHOENIX _ The Arizona Diamondbacks saw plenty of Matt Kemp over the past 11 seasons when he played for the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres in the National League West. On Tuesday, they got another dose of Kemp doing damage, this time with a team from the East.
Kemp's bases-clearing double with two out in the eighth inning lifted the Braves to a 7-4 win against the Diamondbacks at Chase Field, only their third win in 11 games but their second in three games since a seven-game skid.
With the Braves trailing 4-3 entering the eighth, former Diamondbacks prospect Dansby Swanson led off with a single, his second hit of the night. One out later, former D-back Ender Inciarte singled and the Braves had runners on the corners with one out.
After Adonis Garcia struck out, reliever Jake Barrett walked Arizona nemesis Freddie Freeman to load the bases and bring up Kemp, who had a sacrifice fly in the fourth inning and a single in the seventh. This time the big man hit an opposite-field double to the right-field corner, clearing the bases.
Kemp was credited with two RBIs, the third run scoring on right fielder Yasmany Tomas' error, which allowed Kemp to reach third. Swanson added a sacrifice fly in the ninth inning for his first RBI in his sixth major league game.
Kemp is 11-for-32 (.344) with five extra-base hits and six RBIs during an eight-game hitting streak, and raised his career average to .299 with 65 extra-base hits and 102 RBIs in 149 games against the Diamondbacks.
For the second night in a row, the Braves staked their young starter, Rob Whalen, to a multi-run lead before the Diamondbacks had their first at-bat. And once again the starter struggled to protect it, only this time his bullpen picked him up and kept the Diamondbacks in check until the offense could get the big, timely hit they needed.
Whalen, in his fifth start, had a 2-0 lead and no hits allowed through 2 2/3 innings, then saw his pitch command completely abandon him as he failed to retire any of the next six batters in a four-run inning that gave Arizona a 4-2 lead.
Whalen retired eight of the first nine batters, allowing just one walk, before trouble arrived in the form of consecutive two-out walks to Jean Segura and Michael Bourn in the third inning. That brought up slugger Paul Goldschmidt, whose walk-off homer gave Arizona a 9-8 win in Monday's series opener.
Whalen walked Goldschmidt, too, loading the bases for Yasmany Tomas, who came in tied for the National League lead with 13 homers since the All-Star break. Tomas hit a game-tying two-run single through the left side of the infield.
Wellington Castillo was up next, and when Whalen hit him with a pitch to reload the bases, it was clear the rookie might not get out of the inning even if Braves interim manager Brian Snitker would keep giving him chances to.
With the bases reloaded, Whalen faced Jake Lamb, who pulled a long fly ball to the right-field corner that bounced over the fence, driving in two runs instead of the three that it might have otherwise. And that was all for Whalen, who exited with the Braves down 4-2.
He had gone from allowing no hits and one walk through 2 2/3 scoreless innings to allowing two hits, four runs and three more walks without recording another out.
Ryan Weber replaced him and put out the fire, inducing an inning-ending groundout and retiring all seven batters faced before the Braves had Gordon Beckham pinch-hit (fly out) for Weber when his spot came up to start the sixth inning.
It was an impressive night for a Braves bullpen that's worked an awful lot of innings and struggled lately. After Weber, Chaz Roe pitched a perfect inning and Jose Ramirez (2-0) worked around a leadoff triple and a hit batsman in a three-strikeout seventh inning, fanning Bourn and Goldschmidt consecutively with two on to get out unscathed.
Rookie Mauricio Cabrera had three strikeouts and allowed one hit in the eighth inning and Jim Johnson worked a scoreless ninth and converted his 11th save in 14 chances.
