Got an email this morning from a Braves  fan who’d managed to maintain a sense of humor but was clearly upset over the Game 1 loss. “Why can’t we have nice things?” she asked, referring to the Braves’ decade-plus lack of postseason success.

  My reply, which I would’ve said in Bill Clinton voice if I’d had her on the phone: “I feel your pain.” Because I’ve covered this team for 11 seasons now and am still waiting to cover a Braves postseason series win. Hard to believe, but the team that once made it an annual rite of fall to go to the postseason, and won five NL pennants during the 1990s, hasn’t won a postseason series since 2001.

  And here’s an almost shocking stat: The Braves have lost seven consecutive playoff-series openers, including Thursday night. And they’ve won Game 2 in each of the previous six series in that streak … then lost the series.

The last time they won a series opener was a 2001 division series against the Astros, when the Braves swept. That was also their last playoff series win.

  The seventh consecutive Game 1 loss – and that’s not including last year’s Wild Card loss – was a 6-1 defeat at the hands of Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers on Thursday, when the Braves fell behind 5-0 early and Kershaw piled up nine strikeouts against the last 11 batters he faced and 12 in seven innings total.

   It wasn’t just that the Braves lost – after all, Kershaw is the best starting pitcher in the majors now, having taken that unofficial tag from Justin Verlander over the past couple of seasons -- but it the way they lost, making subtle and not-so-subtle mistakes and just looking generally uncompetitive, save for Kris Medlen’s perfect first inning with three strikeouts.

  Things unraveled soon after that for Medlen and the Braves, and now they’re in a familiar position: Down 1-0 in a short series. I asked manager Fredi Gonzalez if the fact that this particular Braves have been one of the best but streakiest teams in baseball all year -- losing three or four in a row, then reeling off a double-digit winning streak – could work both for and against them in this situation.

  In other words, while the Braves probably won’t panic, which is good, they might also not approach things with the appropriate sense of urgency, which would be bad. Unlike during the 162-game season, they obviously can’t shrug off a three-game losing streak in the postseason.

  “No, we can’t afford to lose three or four in a row. That’s  not good,” Gonzalez said. “But you feel OK. We’ve been in this position before, and we’ve also rattled off 14 in a row and a couple of other double-digit (streaks) during the course of the year. But yeah, you don’t want to get down two or three in a row; well, (if it’s) three in a row we’re going home. But you feel good that your team has been there and done that. They’re resilient.

  “I thought for five innings we put some pretty good at-bats on Kershaw. We didn’t get any runs, but we put some good at-bats on him. They put some good on Medlen and got some runs. But other than that, we’ve got to go out today and play, and get a good performance from Michael (Minor), get some runs, and go on to L.A.”

  Game 3 is Sunday at Dodger Stadium. The Braves do not – repeat, DO NOT – want to go out to what we’ll be a packed house of more than 50,000 needing to win two games to get the series back to Atlanta for a decisive Game 5 on Wednesday. They need to win tonight, which would put them in position to split two at L.A. and still get the series back to Atlanta.

   Ex-Brave Mark DeRosa, serving as a studio analyst for TBS, said of Braves Game 2 starter Mike Minor:“He has to step up. If the Braves lose two at home, this [series] is over. He’s been their best pitcher for most of the year. It’s his moment.”

  Brian McCann, who might be playing his final games as a Brave, said the team realizes there’s a sense of urgency. And it  has nothing to do with his pending free agency, but rather with this 96-win team’s desire to advance deep in the postseason, and certainly not lose in the first round after leading the division nearly wire-to-wire and having the best record in the NL for much of the way.

  Winning streaks and losing streaks, highs and lows during the regular season? All that is irrelevant now, McCann said.

   “When you get to this point, in the playoffs, all that stuff is out the window,” he said. “You’re battling Kershaw last night, now we’re going to battle (Zack) Greinke. Last night I thought we did a good job off Kershaw. His pitch count was up; I looked out there in the fifth inning and it seemed like we had more hits and more runs than we actually did. We made him work, we just didn’t get the big hit when we needed it. We’ve got Greinke tonight, hopefully we can put some runs on the board.”

  A few other Braves have playoff experience, but McCann is the only one on the active roster who had played in more than one playoff series with the Braves before this year. He hit a game-changing three-run homer off Roger Clemens in McCann’s first postseason at-bat, in Game 2 of the 2005 division series against Houston.

  “This  is my ninth year here, my third time making the postseason; fourth if you want to count the Wild Card (game),” McCann said. “But you don’t get these chances very often. And when you do get them, it’s special. The feeling your get when you walk on the field for a postseason baseball game is like nothing you’ll ever experience. So everything’s out the window. You try to win the ballgame. You do whatever you can do.

"That’s what we do, we show up, we prepare. The ball just didn’t bounce our way last night. So we’ve got to regroup and come back out tonight and get them.”

  That Houston series in 2005 was the fifth in the string of six in which the Braves lost the opener, won Game 2, and lost the series. The only playoff series they’ve played since then -- before the current series -- was in 2010 against the eventual World Series champion Giants, when all four games were one-run games and the injury-riddled Braves lost three of them.

  “Some of us have been in this position before,” McCann said. “We’re just down one game. They threw  Kershaw at us. He took it to us. Tip your hat and move on. Tonight’s a big game. We need to come out and swing the bats. We have all the confidence  in Mike that he’s going to throw a gem, and make this thing a series.”

  • Playoff struggles: The Braves are 9-21 in their past 30 postseason games, including 1-7 with a .204 batting average and 22 runs in their past eight. They have scored a total of eight runs during their current four-game postseason losing skid, all four of those played at Turner Field.

  They are 5-17 with a 4.37 ERA and .232 batting average in their past 22 home games, including 0-4 with .207 BA and 2.75 ERA in the past four.

   In their 28 postseason series since the franchise moved to Atlanta, the Braves are 10-2 in postseason series when they’ve won Game 1, and 2-14 in series in which they lost the opener.

BRAVES LINEUP Game 2

1. Heyward cf
2. Jupton rf
   
3. Freeman 1b
4. Gattis lf
5. McCann c
6. CJohnson 3b
7. Simmmons ss
8. EJohnson 2b
9. Minor p

 • Tonight’s matchup: It’s lefty Mike Minor against Dodgers righty Zack Greinke, who would be the No. 1 starter on many major league teams.

  Minor was 2-4 with a 4.45 ERA and .248 opponents’ average in his last nine starts this season, after going 11-5 with a 2.36 ERA and .226 OA in his first 23 starts. He was 1-2 with a 5.34 ERA in his last five home starts, and for the year he had an ERA nearly a run lower on the road (2.76) than at home (3.62).

  Julio Teheran had a 3.04 ERA at home and 3.38 ERA on the road. Fredi Gonzalez said he wanted to go with the lefty Minor in Game 2 at home to separate the righties, Medlen and Teheran, who will start Game 3 on Sunday at Dodger Stadium.

  Minor has pitched quite well against the Dodgers, going 1-1 with a 2.32 ERA in five starts including 1-0 with a 2.25 ERA in two this season. He’s had quality starts in all five games against the Dodgers, and allowed only one run in three of those games and two in another.

   Greinke is an elite pitcher when he’s on, and he’s been on more often than not since midseason. He went 9-2 with a 1.57 ERA and .196 opponets’ average in 16 starts after July 4, after going 6-2 with a 4.30 ERA and .289 opponents’ average in his first 12 starts.

   He went 5-0 with a 1.39 ERA in eight road starts after July 4, allowing two runs or fewer in each. He had been 2-2 with a 6.12 ERA in six road starts before July 4.

   Hopeful stat for Braves fans: Greinke is 1-1 with a 6.48 ERA and .311 opponents’ average in three postseason starts, all in 2011 with the Brewers. He gave up 10 earned runs, 16 hits and four homers in 11 innings of his first two postseason starts at home against Arizona and St. Louis, then five runs (two earned) and seven hits in 5-2/3 innings at St. Louis.

   Greinke is 1-1 with a 3.50 ERA in three starts against the Braves, one each in 2010, 2011 and 2013. He held them to four hits and three walks with seven strikeouts in seven scoreless innings of a June 6 win at Dodger Stadium.

  Against Greinke, Justin Upton is 5-for-11 with a homer, Jordan Schafer is 5-for-11, McCann is 2-for-6 with ahomer, Elliot Johnson 2-for-3, and Freddie Freeman and Chris Johnson each is 1-for-5.

  Let's close with a cut from Ashley Monroe off her great album. You can hear it by clicking here.

“LIKE A ROSE” by Ashley Monroe

I was only 13 when daddy died
Mama started drinking and my brother just quit trying
I'm still bouncing back, heaven only knows
How I came out like a rose

Ran off with what's his name when I turned 18
Got me out of North Dakota, but it did not change a thing
I left it in the yard, all covered up with snow
And I came out like a rose

Sitting in this diner with a coffee in my hand
Waiting on a bus to some promise land
I got a one way ticket as far as it goes
And I came out like a rose

So I'm headed south to anywhere that ain't so damn cold
Where I can warm my heart and shake the chill from my bones
It took a while to get here, it's been a long hard road
And I came out like a rose

Sitting in this diner with a coffee in my hand
Waiting on a bus to some promise land
I got a one way ticket as far as it goes
And I came out like a rose

It took a while to get here, it's been a long hard road
And I came out like a rose