Braves Franchise History
1914: The Giants lose their fifth-straight game in a 3-2 loss to Cincinnati. The loss allows the idle Braves to move into a tie for first place. Herbie Moran (who was playing his last game for Cincy before being sold to the Braves) doubles in the game-winner in the 9th.
1931: In St. Louis, the league-leading Cardinals go to 78-44 by sweeping the Braves. The Redbirds pound Boston 16-1 in the opener as Chick Hafey drives in eight runs on 5-for-5 hitting. Two of those hits were home runs and one of those was a grand slam. Later on, St. Louis takes the nightcap 1-0 in 11 innings, winning on Jim Bottomley’s home run.
1953: Phil Paine (a former Boston Braves pitcher who was on military service with the U.S. Air Force in Japan) becomes the first ex-major league player to play in Japan. He pitches nine games for the Nishitetsu Lions where he records four wins, three losses and an ERA of 1.77.
1963: Warren Spahn sets an NL record by making his 601st career start — going past Grover Alexander in the process — while pitching a complete game against the Dodgers for the 343rd win of his. This was only after spending most of his day in Hollywood filming what would be his first and last performance as an actor on the popular World War II-set TV series, Combat. Spahn shows up in an uncredited role as a German patrolman but his appearance is made well-known to the adoring public.
1960: Following up a no-hitter in his most recent start, Lew Burdette fires his third shutout in a row and pitches the Braves to a 7-0 win over the Dodgers. The Braves stroked five homers in this one.
2011: The Braves ride a five-run 5th inning (highlighted by Jason Heyward’s first career grand slam) to a 5-4 win over the Cubs. Craig Kimbrel ties the major league rookie record for saves (which had been set in the previous season by Neftali Feliz) by notching his 40th save of the year. Aramis Ramírez has the first five-hit game of his career in a losing effort.
2019: For the second time in this particular season, Jacob deGrom strikes out at least 13 batters and also homers in a game as he limited the Braves to one run over seven innings. However, his long ball is the only offense for the Mets on this night, who go on to lose the game 2-1 in 14 innings following Billy Hamilton’s first hit with Atlanta. deGrom records his 200th K of the year in the game, as New York’s pitchers combine for a total of 26, tying the major league record for an extra-inning game. Before deGrom did it twice in a season, no pitcher had ever struck out 13 or more batters and homered in the same game more than once in his career.
Meanwhile for Atlanta, Ronald Acuña Jr. becomes the second-youngest player to record a 30-30 season. Mike Trout was the youngest to do so during his age-21 season.
2021: The two hottest teams in the majors meet in an interleague game when the Braves host the Yankees at Truist Park, with both teams having won their last nine games — something that had not happened in 120 years. It’s the visitors who end up gaining the upper hand in a 5-1 win. Giancarlo Stanton and Dansby Swanson trade solo shots in the second inning but then Stanton drives in two more runs with a two-out double in the 6th to help the Yankees pull away.
MLB History
1961: The third-place Giants pull within four games of first place in the NL West with a 14-0 blowout of the Reds. San Francisco finished the game off with a record-tying five home runs in a 12-run 9th inning. Home runs from six different Giants hitters tied the big league record for a nine-inning game. The Giants also racked up 27 total bases in the ninth inning, which is still a modern major league record. Juan Marichal is the winning pitcher and this ends up being his seventh-straight win at this point in the season.
1989: The Dodgers and Expos go 22 innings, with the only run in the entire game coming after Rick Dempsey homered off of Dennis Martinez to eventually win the marathon 1-0. This game also included the infamous moment where legendary Expos mascot Youppi! got thrown out of the game after Tommy Lasorda got tired of his antics on top of the away team’s dugout.
In the 16th inning, Larry Walker appeared to have scored the game-winner on a sacrifice fly, but the Dodgers appealed that he left third base too early and ended up getting the play reversed. The incredibly patient fans in attendance got to enjoy three seventh inning stretches during the record-six hours and 14 minutes game.
1998: Giants outfielder Barry Bonds hits his 26th homer of the season and the 400th of his career off of Marlins pitcher Kirt Ojala in the 10-5 victory for San Francisco. With that homer, Bonds became the first player in big league history to hit 400 home runs and steal 400 bases over the course of his career.
2009: Second baseman Eric Bruntlett delivers an infamous moment of bad luck in Mets history. With the two men on and nobody out (in the bottom of the ninth inning, no less), Jeff Francoeur hits a liner right to Bruntlett, who proceeds to turn an unassisted triple play in order to give the Philadelphia Phillies a 9-7 win over the New York Mets. It’s only the second game in big league history to end on a “walk-off” unassisted triple play — Johnny Neun pulled it off on May 31, 1927 in order to seal a game for the Tigers
Information for this article was found via Baseball Reference, NationalPastime.com and Today in Baseball History.
