Braves stunned by Rockies in ninth

Denver — The Braves had a 4-0 lead after 1 1/2 innings … and blew it.

They had a 7-3 lead after six innings … and blew it.

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AP

Braves’ Martin Prado slaps an RBI-single against Rockies starting pitcher Jason Hammel in the first inning.

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They blew it big-time Sunday at Coors Field, where the Colorado Rockies scored five unanswered runs in the last three innings for an 8-7 win against the Braves, who looked stunned as they headed for their flight home and three days to think about what happened.

“It got away from us,” said manager Bobby Cox, whose Braves frittered away a win that would have brought them to .500 at the All-Star break and given them consecutive road series wins at Chicago and Colorado. “Today was a tough one to swallow.”

Instead of riding a three-game winning streak to the break, the Braves split the four-game series with the Rockies, finished 5-5 on the three-city trip, and fell to 43-45, six games behind National League East leader Philadelphia and two games behind second-place Florida.

Tough to swallow? Reliever Luis Valdez sounded as if he could barely swallow at all from the butterflies of his major league debut. Unfortunately for the Braves, it came in the ninth inning of a tie game, and Valdez gave up a game-ending, two-out double by Brad Hawpe after a one-out single.

“For my first game, I was a little nervous in the bullpen and coming to the mound,” said Valdez, thrust into the pressured situation because the Braves were shorthanded and Cox had used his best available relievers.

Not that a couple of them did much better: Peter Moylan gave up two hits, a walk and a run in the eighth for his fifth blown save in as many chances, and Manny Acosta gave up three runs in the seventh, including Seth Smith’s two-run homer.

That home run followed some ugliness on a Clint Barmes RBI single, when two throwing errors by Acosta and left fielder Garret Anderson let him reach third. Two pitches later, Smith drove one to the right-field seats to trim the lead to 7-6.

Gone was the swagger the Braves had felt earlier, when they built such a substantial lead that the biggest remaining question seemed to be whether Brooks Conrad might hit for the cycle.

The 29-year-old rookie had an RBI triple in the first inning, a single in the third, and a two-run homer (the second of his career) in the fifth. He had his first three-hit game and only needed a double to complete the rarity, but Conrad struck out in his final two at-bats.

Asked if it were bittersweet, he said, “It’s bitter all the way. To get a lead like that and end up losing. Just a tough pill to swallow. It would have been a big win for us, but we couldn’t get it done.”

Chipper Jones was the only Braves starting position player who didn’t get a hit, going 0-for-3 with a walk to move into a tie with Hank Aaron for second on the franchise list with 1,297 walks, behind Eddie Mathews (1,376).

That seemed insignificant at the end of this day. The Phillies and Marlins won Sunday. So did the fourth-place New York Mets, who will be just a half-game behind the Braves when the teams start a four-game series Thursday at Turner Field.

“Now we’ve got three days to kind of think about [Sunday’s loss],” said center fielder Nate McLouth, who had two doubles, two walks and a stolen base, and was stranded twice in scoring position. “I don’t want to say it felt like we dominated the game. But it felt like we had the game in hand.”

With their full complement of relievers, perhaps. But not with this bunch, at this ballpark.

Mike Gonzalez was out with a sore elbow, and Rafael Soriano had pitched four times in five days, so he was to rest Sunday. Kris Medlen moved from the bullpen to fill in Sunday for starter Javier Vazquez, who has an abdominal strain.

Medlen gave up three runs and six hits in four innings, including homers by Hawpe and Troy Tulowitzki. He had hoped to pitch deeper into the game. In the end, Valdez and the Braves probably wished he would have, too.