DEL.ICIO.USMajor League Baseball: N.L. East
Braves sweep Phillies, only two back
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Before the Braves flew to Washington late Thursday, they had already soared past Philadelphia.
Garret Anderson’s two-run homer in a three-run eighth inning sealed a 5-2 win against the Phillies and gave the Braves a three-game sweep of the defending World Series champions.
Elissa Eubanks /eeubanks@ajc.com
Martin Prado played a major role in what could be a season-changing sweep by the Braves.
Not to mention a jolt of positive energy that ran through the dugout and clubhouse and might just have been enough to start their charter jet.
“Huge win,” said starting pitcher Javier Vazquez said. “Any time you sweep the guys in first place, that’s a huge win.”
Casey Kotchman hit a two-run homer, and Matt Diaz added three hits for the Braves, including a tie-breaking RBI double in the eighth before Anderson hit the Braves’ first pinch-hit homer of the season.
“We’re right there in the middle of it,” Diaz said. “Somehow, some way.”
In three days, the fourth-place Braves (38-40) went from five games behind the National League East-leading Phillies to only two behind what are now the division co-leaders, the Phillies and idle Florida Marlins.
The Braves finished a 6-4 homestand riding their first four-game winning streak of the season.
“I said going into the series, if we win two of three we’re right in it,” Diaz said, smiling. “And if we lost two out of three we might be out of it. And if we lost all three, we might all get traded.
“To win all three — this is big for us.”
They’re still in fourth place, but the Braves are back squarely in the race in a division where every team has flaws and has struggled for long stretches. The Phillies have lost 14 of their past 18 games.
“It came at a good time — before the hometown fans, and at the right time,” manager Bobby Cox said of the Braves’ first sweep against the Phillies since April 2007. “You want to be in the hunt, not out of it.”
The Braves are 7-2 against the Phillies this season, after going 4-14 against them in 2008. They’re 3-0 against them at Turner Field, where the Braves lost all nine games against them in 2008.
Before departing for a 10-game, three-city trip that will carry the Braves to the All-Star break, they evened their home record at 21-21 and gave the Turner Field denizens some thrills.
They also improved to 9-0 when right fielder Jeff Francoeur wears his lucky “turkey underwear” to the ballpark on game days. Vazquez told him late Wednesday, after he wore them and the Braves won 11-1, that he had best wear them again Thursday.
It didn’t translate into a win for hard-luck pitcher Vazquez, who was charged with two runs and seven hits in 5-1/3 innings and got no decision, leaving him with a 1-3 record in his past seven starts despite a 2.07 ERA.
But good fortunes continued for the Braves, who nearly saw the Phillies score a go-ahead run in the eighth without a hit. Jayson Werth drew a walk, stole second and went to third on a throwing error on the play by catcher Brian McCann. He then tried to score when a pitch went past McCann’s mitt to the backstop.
“I lost it in the scoreboard,” McCann said. But he retrieved it quickly, and lefty Mike Gonzalez raced in to cover the plate, making an athletic play to catch the throw and apply the tag on Werth for the inning-ending out.
Kotchman’s towering two-run homer to right off lefty starter J.A. Happ in the fourth gave the Braves a 2-0 lead. It was just his third homer this season and his first since May 8, when he hit one at Philadelphia.
Kotchman has hit five homers in 62 at-bats against the Phillies since June 22, 2008. He has hit five in 433 at-bats against every other team in that period.
The 2-0 lead was protected until the sixth, when Chase Utley hit a leadoff single, and Vazquez hit Jayson Werth with a pitch with one out. Greg Dobbs followed with a double over center fielder Gregor Blanco, scoring Utley on a close play when he collided with McCann, who dropped the ball.
Pedro Feliz’s groundout against reliever Peter Moylan drove in the tying run.
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