Norton hits homer but Braves fall

Washington — The Braves returned to the scene of their season opener Friday, but this time trying to hurry and finish the season.

Just as on March 30 at Nationals Park, they faced former Brave Odalis Perez. But this time Tim Hudson — not to mention John Smoltz, Tom Glavine, Peter Moylan and Rafael Soriano — was out of action recovering from arm surgery.

Ryan Zimmerman, who hit a walk-off homer March 30, drove in a run in the first inning to help the Nationals get a five-run jump on the Braves in a 7-3 victory.

The Nationals improved to 8-4 this season against the Braves.

“You got to tip your hat to them,” said Brian McCann, who struggled to come up with an explanation. “They beat us eight out of 12. Numbers can speak for themselves.”

Sinking closer to the last-place Nationals by the day, playing in game No. 135, the Braves look like a tired team, and Jorge Campillo pitched like he was tired.

He lasted only 3-2/3 innings, his shortest outing of the season other than a rain-shortened start in Philadelphia on July 27. Campillo, now 7-7 with a 3.61 ERA, has lost three of his past four starts and is 2-3 with a 6.15 ERA in August.

Campillo thinks hitters are adjusting to him.

“They have very good scouting reports on me,” he said.

He walked three batters and threw a wild pitch, and without his pinpoint fastball, wasn’t as effective.

“I think teams are starting to sit on a lot of off-speed pitches,” McCann said. “Those are his best pitches. His control and his off-speed are his best assets, and tonight he was a little erratic with his fastball.”

Campillo allowed eight hits, including more than his share of bloopers.

First, it was Zimmerman’s RBI single. With two outs and two runners on in the fourth, Lastings Milledge dropped a bloop single to right field to score two runs and put the Nationals up 5-0.

In between those hits, Elijah Dukes hit a bad-hop grounder past Chipper Jones and legged it into a double. Dukes then scored on an Emilio Bonifacio triple.

The Braves, meanwhile, couldn’t get a big hit with runners on base, and Yunel Escobar was the frequent rally-killer. He grounded into three double plays to match a franchise record held by Walt Cruise (1924) and Joe Adcock (1955). His 23 double plays this season are one off the Atlanta Braves record for a season, held by Andruw Jones (2004) and Dale Murphy (1988).

“[Escobar] is having a tough time,” manager Bobby Cox said. “I quit hitting him in front of Chipper because of it. And now it happened again three times. It’s a good way to hit. He keeps the bat level, and he hits the ball where it’s pitched, basically. It just happens to be at somebody every time. Can’t do much about it. I sure don’t want him to change anything.”

Perez worked around trouble for 6 1/3 innings on his way to a second win in three starts against the Braves this season.

Greg Norton hit a pinch-hit two-run homer off Perez in the fifth inning to get the Braves’ offense on the board. It was Norton’s 12th career pinch-hit homer, which trails only Mark Sweeney (15) among active players.

But the Braves should have scored long before then. They loaded the bases with one out in the first inning, but Escobar bounced into his first double play.

“We’ve got to swing the bats early, man,” McCann said. “It goes back to that.”