For his third start in a row, Edinson Volquez failed to make it out of the fourth inning. On August 10th, he lasted just 3 1/3 innings while surrenduring six earned runs. Six days before that, he didn't even make it through the 2nd, leaving the game after allowing four earned runs in 1 2/3 innings. He attributed that outing to a blister on his pitching hand that was causing him trouble, and was said to have healed before his August 10th start, but he hasn't been the same since then. Last night's outing was no difference.
All six of the Braves' runs came home with Volquez on the mound. He got through the first two innings unscathed, though there was a close call in the 2nd. But in the 3rd inning, he failed to pitch himself out of a dangerous situation. With runners on 2nd and 3rd, he gave up a home run to Dan Uggla to give Atlanta a 3-1 lead. An inning later, Volquez still couldn't get it together. After striking out Brian McCann to lead off the inning, he hit Paul Janish, followed by a wild pitch that allowed Janish to reach second base. Pitcher Paul Maholm reached base on a fielder's choice and then Michael Bourne hit an RBI groundout to make it 4-1 Braves. But they weren't done there. Martin Prado, who's had a great series, hit a two-out single, immediately followed by a 2-RBI double by Jason Heyward.
Miles Mikolas came in to relieve Volquez, pitching scoreless baseball through the sixth inning. Cory Burns and Brad Brach both pitched scoreless innings as well, but our offense didn't have enough in them to overcome Volquez' outing. The extent of our offensive production came in the form of a solo home run by Logan Forsythe that gave us an early, but brief, lead in the top of the 3rd inning. Other than that, Braves pitching effectively shut down our offense and our Padres suffered a second straight loss.