Miami bullpen allows late lead to evaporate
ATLANTA — An early deficit wasn’t too much for the hot-hitting Marlins to overcome. Nor was a substantial lead enough for the Miami bullpen to protect when the Atlanta Braves mounted their comeback Saturday.
Marlins closer A.J. Ramos blew a save for the first time in 10 tries this season as the Braves rallied from four runs down to a series-tying 8-7 win at SunTrust Park.
Matt Adams had four RBI for Atlanta, but it was Brandon Phillips who drove in the winning run in the 10th with a one-out single to center after he doubled and scored the tying run in the ninth, both against Ramos.
“The slider [in the ninth] was up and the two-seam [fastball in the 10th] I pulled it and it was down the middle,” Ramos said. “I have a feeling he knew it was coming. I didn’t care if he did or not.
“If I execute that pitch, he doesn’t do anything with it. It was down the middle and he just stayed with it and hit it up the middle.”
The winning run came one batter after Ramos threw wildly into center field after fielding a comebacker and trying to catch Johan Camargo off second.
“You’d like to get that guy out of scoring position,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said. “So if you have the play … it seemed like the play was there, he just kind of got a little hurried with it. The main thing is you want to get an out there.”
Ramos got an unfortunate break in the ninth when Nick Markasis’ smash down the first-base line hit the bag and went for a double, driving in Phillips.
Marlins relievers and fielders had difficulty getting needed outs over the final five innings after they took a 7-3 lead with seven runs in the fifth and sixth innings.
A misjudged fly to center by Christian Yelich that should have ended the seventh helped the Braves’ comeback gain traction. Yelich misread the ball off the bat of Tyler Flowers and started back before charging in too late to prevent the ball from dropping. Adams followed with his second double and fourth RBI that cut the Miami lead to one.
The Braves chipped two runs off the lead against reliever Brad Ziegler in the sixth, but Dee Gordon saved a run when he charged Ender Inciarte’s slow chopper and made a quick throw to get the inning-ending out by an eyelash.
“We only scored in two innings, so let’s don’t act like our offense was unbelievable today,” Mattingly said. “Eight other innings we didn’t really mount much of a charge.
“We didn’t tack on any runs. We weren’t very good defensively. We didn’t do much offensively other than those two innings. We let them right back in.”
The Marlins had only one hit after the sixth. Earlier, the momentum was with Miami after the two productive innings.
Tyler Moore got the Marlins started in a comeback from a 3-0 deficit when he crushed a two-strike changeup from Jaime Garcia for a two-run homer in the fifth inning. The homer was Moore’s sixth. He hit four of them while Justin Bour was on the DL with a bruised ankle.
Bour, who was rested Saturday, came off the bench to deliver a run-scoring single in the sixth.
After Moore’s homer, Ichiro Suzuki tied it with a pinch-single to right after a balk and a passed ball advanced Christian Colon to third. It gave Ichiro hits in 41 of 42 ballparks he has played in during his 17 seasons in the major leagues. That included an appearance at the Tokyo Dome for a regularseason series with the Seattle Mariners in 2012.
Yelich capped the fifth with a two-run double on a laser-shot to right that sailed past Markakis. That gave Yelich five RBI in the series.
But a hot-hitting Marlins team that had won nine of 13 couldn’t keep the pedal down.