Barton's single in 9th lifts G-Braves by Bats

LAWRENCEVILLE - It wasn't how many hits the Gwinnett Braves had that was the key in Saturday night's game against the Louisville Bats, it was when they got them.

Five of their eight hits came in two innings - including Chris Burke's three-run home run in the fifth that erased an early three-run deficit and Brian Barton's walk-off RBI single in the ninth - to lift the G-Braves to a 4-3 win before 8,471 fans at Gwinnett Stadium.

The win snapped a two-game losing streak.

"(It's amazing) what one hit can do sometimes," G-Braves manager Dave Brundage said. "I've seen that so many times in the game of baseball. The last couple of nights, we didn't take advantage of those situations. (Saturday) night, we did."

The G-Braves didn't have many situations to take advantage of through the first four innings as Louisville's Ben Jukich set down the first 12 batters he faced, striking out six of them.

However, Barbaro Canizares broke up the perfect game leading off the fifth by beating out an infield single despite a diving stop by Louisville third baseman Edwin Encarnacion, and Brooks Conrad followed with a single through the hole.

That brought Burke to the plate, and the shortstop lined his first homer since joining the G-Braves nine games ago just high enough to clear the wall in left to suddenly tie the game 3-3.

It stayed that way thanks to a strong outing by the Gwinnett bullpen. Vladimir Nunez shut out Louisville on just one hit and struck out five in the next three innings, and Jon Huber (1-0) pitched around a hit to throw a scoreless ninth.

Then after Canizares led off the ninth with a single and pinch runner J.C. Holt went to third on Encarnacion's throwing error on Conrad's sacrifice bunt, Pedro Viola (2-1) intentionally walked Burke to bring up Barton.

And the G-Braves' outfielder delivered by lining a 1-0 pitch into the gap in right-center to plate Holt with the winning run.



(gwinnettdailypost.com)