Brewers Give Braves Wet Wily, Win 2-0

I jinxed them. Put the blame on me.

After saying that Wily Peralta is a guy "the Braves should have a field day" against, this was bound to happen. Seven innings of shutout, 2-hit ball later, the Braves are saddled with their major-league-leading 10th shutout loss of the season. Peralta really wasn't all that spectacular. He walked 4 and only struck out 4, but the Braves helped him out. I did say they should be patient and let him work himself into trouble, but many of the Braves went up there and swung at pitches out of the zone.

The Braves did, of course, hit a number of balls well. Justin Upton and Dan Uggla notably hit balls back to the wall and just to the wrong side of where the walls jut in, but that's baseball, I suppose. In total, the Braves did walk 6 times, but it felt like they should have walked more. They just couldn't muster any hits.

This is especially unfortunate for Julio Teheran, who had another solid start. It wasn't "amazing", but he went 6.1 innings and struck out 5 while not walking anyone - he did hit 2 batters. He had some initial troubles in the first inning as Norichika Aoki found a hole, Jean Segura blooped one into right, and a pitch grazed Carlos Gomez, but agains demonstrating his improvement from last season, Teheran didn't unravel and allowed just one run to score. A Jean Segura home run was the only other run the Brewers could even muster.

It was a game the Braves should have won and had opportunities to win. Any offense is bound to go through slumps, and the shutouts are a by-product of living-and-dying by walks and power. When the home runs don't show up, it becomes harder to score. While the 10 shutouts are somewhat problematic, the Braves still have a top-half of the majors offense, and they still lead the division by 5 games. Most teams would trade places with the Braves.

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