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Arizona really couldn’t do much against knuckleballer R.A. Dickey. Well, they were pretty good at getting on-base against him - it was the same problem which we saw late in the first half, they just couldn’t get a clutch hit. The Braves took the lead in the first off Taijuan Walker, but Daniel Descalso tied things up in the sixth. Walker hit into an inning-ending double-play, although there was a case that Torey Lovullo should have appealed. Walker went six innings, allowing two runs on five hits and no walks, with four strikeouts.
The teams then traded shallow home-runs by their stars, Freddie Freeman and Paul Goldschmidt, Paul hitting his 21st of the season, to make it 2-2. The eighth inning proved the decisive one. Arizona took the lead, Chris Owings manufacturing a run after a lead-off single. He stole second, taking third on an error, and came home on a wild pitch. But Archie Bradley allowed four hits in the eighth, and the Braves scored both the tying and go-ahead runs. Not the start to the second-half we wanted.