Bullpen meltdown costs Braves

Philadelphia — Braves manager Bobby Cox has seen plenty in nearly five decades of professional baseball, but he never saw anything quite like his team’s seventh-inning bullpen meltdown Wednesday against the Phillies.

Four relievers squandered a 10-3 lead in the span of three outs, allowing eight runs on three hits, five walks and a hit batter in the seventh inning of a wretched 12-11 loss against Philadelphia at Citizens Bank Park.

“All hell broke loose,” said Cox, after eight consecutive Phillies recorded an RBI, including three straight bases-loaded walks by Peter Moylan and Blaine Boyer. “I’ve seen a couple of walk-ins, but nothing like that in one inning.”

After taking the first two games of the season-opening series, the Braves blew a chance to sweep the World Series champions before a packed house that had little to cheer until the Braves’ seventh-inning debacle.

“One of the solid parts of our team is our pitching, front to back,” said Matt Diaz, whose ninth-inning solo homer wasn’t enough to bring the Braves back. “So that [seventh inning] is just an aberration. You can’t describe it.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever seen it, and hopefully it’s the last. I don’t count on seeing anything like that again this year, that’s for sure.”

Three Phillies had already scored in the seventh when Boyer entered and threw eight balls in nine pitches to the two batters he faced, both with bases loaded.

“It’s the worst inning I’ve seen,” said Boyer (0-1). “Talk about your ultimate. I mean, we were [rolling] there for a while, 10-3, and it just blows up like that. I take the brunt of the blame for that one.”

There was plenty of blame to go around. Lefty Eric O’Flaherty hit Ryan Howard with a pitch after Chase Utley’s one-out bloop hit, and Peter Moylan was out of sorts in his first official appearance since elbow surgery 11 months ago.

“I was amped up because of my first game back,” said Moylan, who was tagged with two hits, four runs and two walks without recording an out. “My mechanics were a little bit off. I was flying open, and I wasn’t able to put the ball where I wanted, and the ball wasn’t sinking. And when my ball doesn’t sink, it’s an 88-mph straight ball that doesn’t do anything.”

Javier Vazquez’s quality start (six innings, three earned runs) in his Braves debut was wasted, as were the second homers of the season by Brian McCann and rookie sensation Jordan Schafer that helped the Braves build a 9-3 lead through five innings.

The Braves added a run on Omar Infante’s bases-loaded walk in the seventh inning, before Atlanta’s own bullpen made that Philly pitching faux pas seem quaint by comparison. The chronology of the seventh inning collapse:

• O’Flaherty starts the inning for the Braves with a 10-3 lead and gives up a one-out single to Utley, then hits Howard with a slider in his back.

• Moylan replaces O’Flaherty, walks Jayson Werth to load the bases, then yields RBI singles by Raul Ibanez and Pedro Feliz before a four-pitch walk to Matt Stairs to bring in another run.

• Boyer replaces Moylan with bases still loaded, walks Chris Coste on five pitches to bring in one run, walks Jimmy Rollins on four pitches.

• Jorge Campillo replaces Moylan, bases still loaded, and gives up a Shane Victorino RBI single, then a five-pitch Utley walk that brings in the tying run. Howard’s RBI groundout drives in eighth run, Phillies lead 11-10.