Braves.Today.Com

By Bud L. Ellis
braves.today.com

Phillies 6, Braves 3

Top of the Order: Playing without their best player in their most important game of the season, the Braves gave up three runs in the top of the ninth to plunge to a season-worst 6 ½ games out of first place in the NL East.

The Good: Mark Teixeira accounted for most of the Atlanta offense, going 3-for-5 with a two-run homer in the first and moving his average to .283. Yunel Escobar, batting in the third spot, contributed two hits. Josh Anderson, who hit leadoff, had a hit and drove in the Braves’ third run. Jorge Campillo wasn’t great, but he wasn’t bad, either (seven hits, three runs in 5 1/3 innings). Will Ohman continues to pitch outstanding, the lefty striking out three in two perfect innings. Both Buddy Carlyle and Manny Acosta each pitched a scoreless 2/3 inning. And Mike Hampton threw off the mound and threw without pain this weekend. He could head out on a rehab assignment in a couple of weeks and … ah, never mind.

The Bad: Chipper Jones did not play after suffering a slight tear of his right quadriceps muscle Saturday night. Jones, who leads the majors with a .420 average, hopes – as we all do – he can return at some point during this week’s series with the Cubs in Chicago. Without his potent bat in the lineup, the Braves had Teixeira and little else. When the Braves did have chances, they squandered them (10 runners left on base). It’s time for Jeff Francoeur to sit again; the right fielder went 1-for-4 but left six runners on base. Why is Corky Miller even on the roster? Dude went 0-for-3 and is hitting an embarrassing .063 (and yeah, I know he’s on the team for defense, but remember the double passed ball game earlier this year? We let Brayan Pena walk to keep the Corkster? Whatever). And now to the ninth, where Blaine Boyer looks like he’s totally run out of gas: four hits, three runs, one walk in 1/3 of an inning, his once-sparkling ERA up to 4.08, his confidence totally shot, his team on the verge of tumbling right out of the pennant race. Rafael Soriano was unavailable again Sunday, and the Braves probably will have to consider disabling the closer (again) if his elbow doesn’t straighten up by the time they open a monster 10-game road trip Tuesday night at Wrigley Field.

View from the Sports Garage: Leave it to Chipper to say it best: “Some people in here better start picking it up,” Hoss said after Sunday’s game, and rightly so. An absolutely devastating weekend at Turner Field, the place where through Tuesday the Braves were monsters. Now, having lost four of the final five games on the homestand, including three straight to the team leading the division, the entire complexity of this season has changed. You knew this would happen if the Braves kept blowing close games and kept leaving runners on base by the boatload. All the times this season this team started to put it together, pulling close to the top spot in the division, merely set us up for what happened the past three days. The Braves were outscored in this series 16-8. Their bullpen gave up 10 runs in the eighth, ninth and 10th innings. Atlanta left 32 runners on base in the three games. When you do that against the division leaders, it doesn’t take long to tumble in the standings. In 42 hours, 15 minutes – from Kelly Johnson dropping the final out of Friday’s game until the end of Sunday’s game – the Braves moved from the verge of being 2 ½ out to the reality of staring at a 6 ½ game deficit. That’s a monumental move, and in the wrong direction. With this team now heading out on the road for the next 10 games, where they have lost 21 of 28 games, and facing the prospects of playing nine of those games against the Cubs, Angels and Rangers, things are looking dire indeed. Chipper is right. It’s time for the Braves to pick it up. They can’t wait, either, or else they will be facing a double-digit deficit in the standings when they return home. Even a .500 road trip probably means another game or two tacked onto the gap between the Braves and first place. And if they get much further behind, this season – for all intents and purposes – will be over.

On deck
Braves at Cubs
8 p.m. Tuesday, Wrigley Field

The Skinny: The last time Tom Glavine (2-2, 4.47 ERA) pitched at the Friendly Confines, he made baseball history, winning his 300th career game. While Tuesday’s road-trip opener won’t match that Aug. 5, 2007, appearance for historical significance, it’s very important just the same for Tommy to pitch well. And he has most of this season, even if the results aren’t reflected in his record. Glavine has allowed two earned runs or less in six of his seven no-decisions this season. It won’t be easy at Wrigley, where the NL Central-leading Cubs are 26-8, the best home record in the NL. Toeing the slab for the Cubbies is lefty Ted Lilly (5-5, 5.23 ERA), who allowed seven hits and two runs in taking a tough 2-1 loss to San Diego in his last start.

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