The Braves might have gotten into this September spiral with three rookies in their starting rotation, but they turned to a rookie Monday to try to get them out.
Randall Delgado, at age 21, stared down Cliff Lee and the Phillies for five innings and came out with a 2-2 draw. But the Braves couldn’t bridge the gap to the seventh without Shane Victorino tripling off Cristhian Martinez to help the Phillies take a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.
The Phillies, “tuning up” for the postseason, won 4-2 to run their record against the Braves this season to 10-6 with a dagger of a victory by the best team in the National League.
But the Braves got a reprieve from the worst team in the National League. The Astros (56-104) beat the Cardinals 5-4 in 10 innings to keep the Braves’ wild-card lead at one game, with two to play. The Braves can clinch the wild card Tuesday if they beat the Phillies, and the Cardinals lose in Houston. Their magic number is two.
Braves veteran Chipper Jones had left the Braves clubhouse by the time the Astros won, but he left feeling good about the Braves’ effort despite their loss.
“I’ll take that showing right there,” said Jones, who went 2-for-4 with a double and home run. “We competed for 27 outs, all nine innings and guys gave it everything they had. If we get beat on a nightly basis playing like that, I can live with it. Some previous games, not so much.”
The Braves lost for the third straight game and 14th time in 21 games. But they can erase some bad memories if they get good outings from veterans Derek Lowe and Tim Hudson against the Phillies. And if the Braves clinch Tuesday night, they can save Hudson for a potential Game 1 of the Division Series.
As for Monday night, the Braves got another solid outing from Delgado but couldn’t get through the sixth inning without faltering. Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said he wanted to use Cristhian Martinez against the first couple of left-handers in the sixth (lefties were hitting .220 against him) and save Eric O’Flaherty for the last out or two, with the idea O’Flaherty would pitch a full seventh inning too.
But Victorino tripled off Martinez with one out, and he scored easily on Raul Ibanez’s single off O’Flaherty past a drawn-in infield. The duo hooked up again in the eighth when Victorino doubled off Jonny Venters and scored on an Ibanez single, leaving many in the crowd of 42,597 at Turner Field to start booing, and maybe even a few Phillies fans started “Ra-ul”ing.
Jones did his best to wield his veteran influence, hitting a home run and a double off Lee, but the Braves left him in scoring position in the sixth, as they have to so many hitters in recent weeks. Then when he had his own chance with runners first and second in the eighth, he grounded into a double play.
Dan Uggla lead off the ninth with a double but the Braves stranded him there to finish went 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position.
But Jones said that had as much to do with good pitching as bad hitting. Overall, he said the Braves’ confidence isn’t shaken.
“We can play tooth and nail with the best teams in the game; we’ve proven that,” Jones said. “We proved it tonight with a guy who started the year in Double-A. He pitched great, we played good defense behind him. We swung the bats good in certain sections of the game, not so good in others. When you’re running up against a Cy Young winner, he doesn’t make too many mistakes. I think we probably took advantage of the few that he did make.”
The Braves might have hoped for a short tune-up from Lee, but he pitched six innings, throwing 92 pitches, and got sharper as he went.
The Braves scored a run each in the first and second inning off Lee on four extra-base hits, but he allowed only one hit for the next four innings on Jones’ double.
“That’s why he’s Cliff Lee,” said Freddie Freeman, who was upset after going hitless in two at-bats with runners in scoring position. “He settled down. Randall Delgado pitched great. I just wish we could have got us some more runs.”
Delgado, the Panamanian kid with a low pulse, and a look-you-in-the-eye demeanor, started with three scoreless innings and a 2-0 lead to work with. But things got tougher his second time through the Phillies order. He gave up three hits in a span of five batters in the fourth inning and finally succumbed on a two-out, two-strike bases loaded hit up the middle by Placido Polanco.
Delgado was doing well to get out of that jam with only that one run scoring but might have tired from the effort. Lee sent Martin Prado crashing into the left field wall on a flyball in the fifth. Three pitches later, Jimmy Rollins tied the game 2-2 with a solo home run to right.
“The kid did a hell of a job today,” Gonzalez said. “Everything considering, he was fantastic. Putting him in this kind of situation, this kind of atmosphere, you can’t ask for anything more. At the very least I think the young man will gain from this experience, and he’s going to be better off for it.”
The Braves came out swinging against Lee. Jones sent a 2-2 fastball over the fence in left center to give the Braves a 1-0 lead in the first inning, their first lead in three days.
That set off a roll of four extra-base hits in a span of six batters. Matt Diaz and Alex Gonzalez came up with back-to-back doubles to right field with one out in the second inning to put the Braves up 2-0.
“After the first two innings, I gave up a 99.9 percent chance of winning,” Jones said. “I really felt like we were going to win, but that’s what good ball clubs do, they chip their way back into it.”
