| Juan Francisco scored the lone run in Thursday's 1-0 Braves victory over the Rockies. (AP) |
There are gift runs and then there's what happened in Atlanta on Thursday.
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Atlanta went on to win the game 1-0, with Jhoulys Chacin's inability to catch a ball thrown back to him allowing Juan Francisco to score the game's only run.
"It's embarrassing. Inexcusable," Chacin told Troy E. Renck of the Denver Post. "I was a little [upset] on the previous pitch and I kind of pushed my glove toward the ball as I was catching it, and I missed it. It should not happen. I have to learn from this mistake."
The lesson? Catch the ball when it's thrown to you.
While Rockies manager Jim Tracy said he'd never seen anything like that play, Braves starter Tim Hudson said it's the second time he's been on a team that won a game like that.
"It was actually a walk-off in Oakland," Hudson told David O'Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "It was Francisco [Rodriguez], K-Rod whiffed at one, and that was actually the winning run. It happened for us early on and we were able to make it last. Luckily we had our fastest guy on the team at third base."
Hudson was joking about Francisco, who can hit a ball very far, but is unlikely to win many sprints. The game he was referencing with Rodriguez came on Aug. 11, 2005, when Jason Kendall scored after Rodriguez dropped a throw from his catcher, giving Oakland a 5-4 victory.
Chacin wasn't great on Thursday, allowing seven hits and walking three in just 3 1/3 innings, but the Braves were just 1 for 8 with runners in scoring position, leaving nine men on base. Four Rockies relievers held the Braves hitless in 4 2/3 innings. Meanwhile, Hudson threw seven scoreless on six hits and two walks, earning his 14th win of the season. The Braves also beat the Rockies 1-0 on Wednesday, marking Atlanta's first consecutive 1-0 victories since 1971 and the first back-to-back 1-0 defeats in Rockies history. Making things even more interesting, the Braves' run on Wednesday was also unearned.
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