Williams Perez was absolutely sensational in the Braves 5-1 win over the Philadelphia Phillies on Wednesday.
The right-hander was called up mid-afternoon on Wednesday, after the Braves traded scheduled starter Jhoulys Chacin to the Los Angeles Angels, and spun a gem, hurling eight innings of two-hit ball.
He was perfect through four innings before allowing a home run to Ryan Howard to lead off the fifth. Other than that, he pitched to just one batter out of the stretch all night, as he allowed a base hit in the eighth and forced the following batter to ground into a double play to end the frame.
He threw 85 pitches -- 63 of them for strikes -- and only reached one three-ball count, but was pinch hit for in the ninth.
"Perez was really, really good," Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said after the game. "He pounded the strike zone, threw a lot of ground balls, we made some plays behind him, and you couldn't ask for anything more."
Arodys Vizcaino came on for the ninth inning to finish off the proceedings.
The Braves snapped an 11-game home losing streak and improved to 2-16 on the season in the confines of Turner Field.
"It was a really good team win. Hopefully we can build on that," Gonzalez said.
As for the offense, Atlanta put single runs on the board in the first, second, third, fifth, and eighth innings.
Kelly Johnson singled, while Nick Markakis and A.J. Pierzynski produced sacrifice flies to put the Braves up 3-0 after three innings. Freddie Freeman answered Howard's blast with a bomb of his own in the bottom of the fifth inning. In the eighth, Gordon Beckham and Erick Aybar traded places with back-to-back doubles.
Freeman is beginning to heat up, as evidenced by a 3-for-4 night where he scored a pair of runs. Johnson produced out of the cleanup spot, with a 2-for-4 performance.
Phillies starter Jerad Eickhoff went 4.1 innings, allowing seven hits and four runs (three earned), and fell to 1-5 on the season. Former Braves prospect Brett Oberholtzer relieved him and threw 2.2 scoreless innings.
The two teams have split the first two games of the series and will wrap things up Thursday at 7:10 p.m. ET. The game will be televised by FOX Sports Southeast.