May 14 2008
Back to .500: Braves’ road struggles continue in loss at Philly
By Bud L. Ellis
braves.today.com
Phillies 5, Braves 4
(Yep, another one-run loss)
Top of the Order: The beat goes on for the Braves away from home as Atlanta couldn’t hold onto an early 3-0 lead, losing for the 15th time in 20 road contests to the Phillies, squandering a solid effort by Jo-Jo Reyes and a three-hit game by Chipper Jones.
The Good: Reyes’ line (11 hits, five runs) is far from indicative of the way he pitched. The 23-year-old left-hander threw first-pitch strikes to 27 of the 32 hitters he faced, exhibited good command of his fastball and, with the exception of a couple of poor pitches to Ryan Howard, Reyes did everything the Braves could have asked for out of the youngster. Jones is heating up again, going 3-for-4 with an RBI, his ninth three-hit game of the year raising his major-league leading average to .415. Kelly Johnson, dropped to seventh in the batting order, responded with two hits. Jeff Francoeur also stayed hot, going 2-for-5 with two RBIs. That’s seven hits in the past three games for Frenchy. Manny Acosta pitched a scoreless inning of relief. Before the game, Rafael Soriano reported his best bullpen session to date; the Braves’ closer could be heading out on a rehab assignment by the first of next week. Mike Gonzalez threw 25 pitches pain free at extended spring training, further bolstering hope he could be ready by the end of the month.
The Bad: More problems with clutch hitting. Save the first inning, when the Braves touched up Kyle Kendrick for three runs, Atlanta once again struggled with runners on base, leaving 11 runners on base. Five of those runners were left in scoring position with two outs, a place where the Braves have been horrible all season. Jorge Campillo came on and allowed an inherited runner to score, which ended up being the difference in the game. Mark Teixeira sat with back spasms; Greg Norton went 0-for-4 in his place. Johnson ran the Braves out of a scoring threat in the sixth, getting picked off second base as Reyes tried to bunt.
View from the Sports Garage: Yet another night where the Braves had chances by the boatload, only to let them sail away with the breeze. Atlanta is hitting a robust (not) .191 with runners in scoring position in road games, the single-biggest reason this team is sitting at .500 and 3 ½ games back in the NL East as opposed to occupying first place. If you’re keeping score at home, that’s 1-11 in one-run games. Yikes! You can’t fault Reyes too much. He got hurt by Howard, but otherwise spotted his pitches well. Not too many of the 11 hits were screamers. But when you can’t cash in opportunities at the plate, all it takes is a couple of bleeders and bloopers here and there to put you in a hole. And, as we all know, this team just cannot rally. The Braves had their chances early to really extend the early lead but – stop me if this sounds familiar – could not come through. Maddening. Frustrating. The biggest reason this team is waking up this morning at .500. It’s not the starting pitching. It’s not the bullpen. It’s the bats in the lineup that time after time after ridiculous time fail to deliver with runners on base. The Atlanta lineup is far too good for this to continue, but if something doesn’t happen soon, one has to wonder the toll it’s going to take on the rest of this season. Bobby Cox shook up the lineup Tuesday, to his credit, dropping Johnson to seventh and putting Yunel Escobar in the leadoff spot with Mark Kotsay second. That’s the lineup I advocated in spring training. Still, it didn’t produce enough Tuesday night. When does this team come home again? Thank your lucky stars the Mets or Phillies haven’t run off 13 of 17, or else this team would be a heck of a lot further back in the East.
On deck
Braves at Phillies
7:05 p.m. today, Citizens Bank Park
The Skinny: Tom Glavine (0-1, 4.03 ERA) is winless in his first six starts for the first time in his career. Take out the rough outing against Cincinnati on the last homestand, though, and it’s hard to find fault with the veteran left-hander. He was super good Friday night at Pittsburgh, but he didn’t get any support. The Braves need another good showing from Tommy tonight against Brett Myers (2-3, 5.33 ERA), whose move back to the rotation has been rough. Myers was touched up for nine hits and six earned runs against Arizona in his last start. Arizona … now THAT’s a team that comes through in the clutch. It’s high time the Braves started doing the same.
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