Braves’ Miller dominant, ends drought in 6-0 win over Cardinals

ATLANTA _ On the final day of the season, one of Braves Country’s long nightmares ended Sunday when Shelby Miller got a win.tmpplchld Miller, the Braves’ best pitcher _ even if his won-lost record didn’t indicate it _ ended his franchise-record 24-start winless streak by shutting out his former team for eight innings of a 6-0 win against the St. Louis Cardinals in the first game of a doubleheader at Turner Field. It was the ninth win in 14 games for the Braves since a 4-26 skid.tmpplchld Miller (6-17) allowed five hits and three walks with seven strikeouts in eight innings for his first win since May 17.tmpplchld Adonis Garcia hit two home runs and Andrelton Simmons added a two-run homer for the Braves in the opener of the doubleheader, raising their majors-low season total to 100 homers and enabling them to avoid the dubious distinction of becoming the first Braves team since 1988 to total fewer than 100 homers.tmpplchld It was the first multi-homer game for Garcia, a 30-year-old rookie whose 10 homers have all come in 55 games during the second half of the season, while Freddie Freeman (six) was the only other Brave with more than four since the break.tmpplchld The Braves took a 2-0 lead in the first inning on RBI singles by Nick Markakis and Cameron Maybin against Cardinals starter John Lackey (13-10), and Garcia hit solo homers in the fourth and sixth before Simmons homered in the seventh.tmpplchld Miller was staked to a lead for the first time since Aug. 26, and didn’t allow a run in the first inning for the first time in four starts.tmpplchld All of Garcia’s 10 errors have also come since the break, including his second-inning error in the doubleheader opener to allow Jhonny Peralta to reach with one out. Brandon Moss followed with a single to put runners on first and second, but Miller retired the next two batters on a line-out and a ground out.tmpplchld The Cardinals advanced a runner to second against Miller in only one other inning, the fourth, after Jason Heyward’s bloop single and Peralta’s walk put runners at first and second with one out. Moss followed with a fly ball caught one step in front of the center-field wall by Cameron Maybin. He got the ball in quickly to second baseman Daniel Castro, who fired to first base to catch pinch-runner Greg Garcia before he could retreat, completing the inning-ending double play.tmpplchld Miller went 0-16 with a 3.83 ERA during a 24-start winless streak that was the longest by a Braves pitcher since the team moved to Atlanta in 1966, and longest in the majors since Chris Volstad went 24 winless starts in a 13-month span over the 2011-2012 seasons. Sixteen consecutive losses was a franchise record and the longest in the majors in 22 years.tmpplchld What made Miller’s streaks so remarkable was the fact that they came during a season in which he was 5-1 with a 1.33 ERA through eight starts, made the National League All-Star team, and ranked among major league ERA leaders for most of the season.tmpplchld His winning drought was nearly twice as long as the previous record by a pitcher in an All-Star season, Nolan Ryan’s 13 consecutive winless starts for the 1983 Houston Astros.tmpplchld When he faced the Cardinals for the first time on July 25 in St. Louis, Miller allowed just two hits and two walks in 7 1/3 innings and didn’t give up a run until the eighth. It still wasn’t enough as Braves were shut out, 1-0, one of 14 starts in which Miller received zero run support while in the game, the most such starts by an Atlanta pitcher since at least 1974.tmpplchld Miller’s run-support rate of 2.37 per nine innings pitched was easily the worst in the majors before Sunday _ no other pitcher was below 3.1 _ and the Braves scored a total of 25 runs while he was in the game during his 24-start winless streak. His ERA ranked among the league’s top 10 all season until it climbed above 3.00 for the first time when he gave up five earned runs in 5 1/3 innings of his last start Sept. 27 at Miami.tmpplchld He went winless in 11 starts when allowing one or no earned runs, the most in the majors this season and most by a Braves pitcher in the team’s Atlanta era.tmpplchld But while poor run support was the overwhelming factors for most of his winless streak, lately Miller’s own performance had slipped. After posting a 2.43 ERA and .221 opponents’ batting average in his first 24 starts, he had a 5.56 ERA and .306 opponents’ average while going 0-8 in his past eight starts before Sunday.tmpplchld ___tmpplchld (c)2015 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Atlanta, Ga.)tmpplchld Visit The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Atlanta, Ga.) at www.ajc.comtmpplchld Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.tmpplchld