Braves shut out to end series

It wasn’t just the sparse crowd for a rare 4:35 p.m. start time that made Monday’s Braves game reminiscent of the old days.

It was the baseball.

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BEN GRAY / bgray@ajc.com

Casey Kotchman tosses the ball to Jorge Campillo to force the Giants’ Travis Ishikawa out at first in the sixth inning of Monday’s game.

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The Braves lost focus and the game 5-0 to the San Francisco Giants, a team that was 20 games under .500 when it arrived at Turner Field on Friday. Since then, the Giants took three out of four to win their first regular-season series in Atlanta since 1993.

The Braves finished this homestand 1-6.

Omar Infante thought there were three outs in the first inning when he failed to throw a ball he’d just caught. It became a two-out sacrifice fly that allowed alert Dave Roberts alertly to score. Brian McCann allowed a run to score in the seventh when he lost track of the count and threw ball four into left field, which would have advanced the runner to third anyway.

In front of an announced crowd of 18,113, the Braves were shut out for the second time in six games. This time they were dealt seven shutout innings from Barry Zito, who was leading the majors with 15 losses.

“I don’t know what to say,” Chipper Jones said. “It’s just bad, bad baseball. Bad. A lot of mental mistakes, forgetting outs, forgetting the count, and it’s everybody. I did it in Arizona. This is the point of the season where you’re going bad and you’re falling out of it, that you’ve really got to bear down and take some pride in going out there and playing. We had a couple games this homestand that were pretty embarrassing.”

The Braves trailed early in each of the six losses; Monday it was a three-run first inning off Jorge Campillo that sent them reeling.

Just like his four-run first inning against the Cubs, Campillo didn’t give up much hard-hit but the Giants came up with four hits, including run-scoring singles by Rich Aurilia and Pablo Sandoval.

“Just a bad first inning,” said Campillo, who went on to retire 14 consecutive hitters before allowing an Aaron Rowand homer in the sixth. “A lot of bloopers, but that happens.”

Campillo had the first extra-base hit of his career off Zito with a double to right center in the fifth inning. He was held up at third by coach Brian Snitker on Yunel Escobar’s single to center. Mark Kotsay then grounded out to thwart what turned out to be the Braves’ best opportunity to score.

The Braves went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position.

“It’s hard to hit with both hands wrapped around your neck, and that’s what it feels like when you walk up there,” Jones said. “The weight of the world, the weight of the team depends on you to drive in a big run, get something kick-started. Once you don’t do it a time or two, the pressure mounts every time you have that opportunity. Hopefully we can get a game here soon that everybody in the lineup gets a hit, drives in a run. Those are things that breed confidence.”

It won’t come easy in New York, where the Braves headed after the game. The Mets are 11/2 games ahead of the Phillies in the NL East and fighting for the division.

The Braves are 7-2 against the Mets, but those games were early in the season. A lot has changed since the Braves last saw the Mets on May 22.

John Smoltz and Tim Hudson have undergone season-ending surgery. Tom Glavine likely faces the same later this week. The Braves endured a 10-15 July and traded Mark Teixeira.

“I don’t know if we match up with [the Mets], but we’ve played well,” said Jones, who has hit .310 with 19 homers at Shea Stadium, the place he named one of his sons after. “Hopefully, we can continue to do the same thing. I look forward to playing on that stage in New York every time I go up there. Hopefully, my teammates will feel the same way.”