Nats walk their way through late rally to beat Braves (updated)

ATLANTA - They labored all night to even give themselves scoring opportunities. Until finally the Nationals figured out the best way to score runs against the Braves pitching staff: Stop swinging.

Four consecutive walks issued by Atlanta's bullpen - three of them via Arodys Vizcaíno with the bases loaded - highlighted a wild, six-run rally in the top of the eighth that turned a tight Nationals deficit into a comfortable 7-3 victory at SunTrust Park.

There were some actual hits during the rally, with Adam Lind singling home two runs and Michael A. Taylor driving in another. But the offensive explosion was ignited not by contact but by a bunch of takes from a group of hitters who managed to stay disciplined enough not to chase poorly located pitch after poorly located pitch by the Braves relief corps.

"The key is those pitches weren't close enough to get tempted to swing," manager Dusty Baker said. "They lost command of the strike zone. They helped us out there. It's easy to be patient when they're not near the strike zone. We capitalized on it."

The consecutive walks were drawn by Jayson Werth, Daniel Murphy, Ryan Zimmerman and Anthony Rendon, with all but Zimmerman's free pass coming on the minimum four pitches from Jose Ramirez and Vizcaíno, who progressively heard louder and louder boos rained upon them by the crowd of 25,054.

"If I got a fastball over the plate, I wanted to be ready to hit," said Murphy, who wound up getting four straight fastballs between 98 and 99 mph up and away. "I think, fortunately, they weren't super-close to the zone. I don't want to say they're easy takes at 99, but I saw them pretty well."

The collective patience displayed by the Nationals made the difference in the bizarre rally and put Gio Gonzalez in position not to take his eighth loss of the season but to earn his 15th win.

Gonzalez surrendered two solo homers but otherwise was brilliant, tossing seven strong innings to maintain his 2.68 ERA (fourth-best in the National League behind Clayton Kershaw and teammates Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg). Matt Albers, Oliver Pérez and Brandon Kintzler closed out the convincing victory, making the Nats 92-59 with a chance still to break the franchise's record 98-win season from 2012.

This game began in most encouraging fashion, with Trea Turner launching Lucas Sims' very first pitch to left for his 10th homer of the season. It was the sixth leadoff homer of Turner's young career, and though he has an awfully long way to go he still earned the ultimate compliment from his manager.

"That's Rickey Henderson-type stuff," Baker said.

Turner nearly blushed when informed of the comparison his manager made.

"That's embarrassing," the second-year shortstop said. "(Henderson) is kind of the player I probably should strive to be, somebody who can kind of do everything. That's what I've always said: I don't want to be one-dimensional. I don't want to just hit homers, or have to bunt to get on base or walk to get on base. I want to be able to do it all."

Turner's quick homer seemed to portend good things for the Nationals lineup against Sims, but that wasn't anywhere close to the truth. The rookie right-hander cruised for the most part after that, facing the minimum into the fifth. Even when he did finally get into a jam, walking Gonzalez to load the bases with two outs, he got out of it by inducing a ground ball to short from Turner.

Given the lack of run support while he was on the mound, Gonzalez needed to be on top of his game to keep this one tight. And he was, aside from two ill-placed changeups.

The first of those changeups was thrown to Freddie Freeman in the bottom of the first and was launched deep to right for the Braves' first run. The second of those changeups was thrown to former batterymate Kurt Suzuki in the bottom of the fifth and was launched deep to left for the Braves' second run.

Otherwise, Gonzalez was brilliant. He didn't allow any other batters to even reach base until the sixth, when he got into a two-on, one-out jam with the heart of Atlanta's order coming to the plate. Even then, he calmly got Freeman to fly out to center and then struck out Nick Markakis looking at a big 3-2 curveball.

Those two key outs in the sixth were yet another reminder of how Gonzalez has resurrected himself this season. Opponents are now batting .150 against him with runners in scoring position, making the lefty once again the major league leader in that category ahead of Kershaw (.152).

"This time, we were attacking the strike zone," said Gonzalez, who gave up five runs in five innings to Atlanta last week at Nationals Park. "We were being more aggressive with the fastball in certain counts, then using the off-speed and curveball when I needed it."