They came to town with a sub-.500 record, sitting in fourth place in the NL East. But they were still the Philadelphia Phillies, which meant trouble for the Braves.
The Phillies scored two runs in the eighth inning against reliever Jonny Venters and beat the Braves 4-2 on Tuesday night in a series opener at Turner Field, their eighth consecutive win against Atlanta.
“I didn’t make pitches when I needed to," Venters (2-1) said after giving up four hits and two runs in two-thirds of an inning, his first runs this season. "I made some decent pitches early in the count, then when I needed to, I didn’t. And they made me pay for it.
"That’s a good lineup. You just can’t do that against those guys.”
The Braves have lost three out of four games and five out of nine since a 10-1 surge from April 10-21. They’ve totaled 31 runs in their past nine games, after scoring 77 in the previous 11.
“It just wasn’t Jonny's day," Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. "A couple balls that just fall in and they capitalized. You’ve got to tip your cap to them. Strike three gets away for the game-winner.
"It’s going to be a tough series. I think every time we play these guys -- every time we play within our division. We’ve got a lot of good baseball teams and there are going to be a lot of good, close games.”
Different year, same result against the Phillies, who beat the Braves in their last seven meetings in 2011, including a three-game sweep in the final weekend of the season in Atlanta. That put the exclamation mark on a 10-20 slide that erased the Braves' huge wild-card lead and kept them out of the playoffs.
The Braves have lost 18 of their past 25 games against the Phillies.
Braves starter Brandon Beachy limited the Phillies to two runs and five hits in seven innings and got no decision, remaining winless (0-3) in seven career starts against the Phillies.
"They’re missing a couple of big pieces of their team," Beachy said, "but that’s still a formidable lineup they’re throwing out there every day.”
With the score 2-all entering the eighth, John Mayberry started a Phillies rally with a one-out pinch-hit double against Venters. Jimmy Rollins followed with a single and Mayberry scored the go-ahead run on a rare swinging strike 3 wild pitch to Placido Polanco, the ball scooting past catcher Brian McCann to the backstop as the rangy Mayberry raced home.
Shane Victorino singled off Venters’ leg and Hunter Pence singled to right field to make the score 4-2 and cause another rarity – a mid-inning pitching change for Venters, who was replaced by Kris Medlen.
“I haven’t had many clean innings this year and today I didn’t make pitches with guys on," said Venters, who had allowed seven hits and five walks in 8-2/3 innings before Tuesday, but had used 17 strikeouts to work out of jams.
"They made me pay for it. There’s no excuse. Brandon pitched his butt off today and we were in the game here at [the eighth inning]. To let it get away like that is unacceptable.”
Phillies stars Ryan Howard and Chase Utley were on the disabled list, which just meant someone was bound to step forward and come through with a big hit or two for Atlanta’s chief rival, right?
Pence had a two-out double and Ty Wigginton followed with a two-run single in the fourth inning to put the Phillies ahead 2-0. Pence’s double, while not a thing of beauty, was awfully effective – he reached out to poke a two-strike, low-and-away pitch through the right side of the infield. The ball rolled long enough to allow him to get to second base before Diaz retrieved it.
“If you guys remember, last year at the end of the year, the last game of the season, [Pence] threw one of those grenades out there to beat us," Gonzalez said. "He’s one of those guys who sticks his nose in there with two strikes and battles and finds a way to hit balls where you can’t even defend. You can’t put people where he hits them. He’s got that quality where he just battles and battles and doesn’t give in.”
Wigginton then singled to left field and the ball rolled under Martin Prado’s glove, allowing Wigginton to reach third. He was originally credited with one RBI with the other run scoring on the error, but the ruling was changed to two RBIs along with a two-base error.
Gonzalez came to the defense of Prado and said the ball had "snaked" -- shifted direction -- as it skipped across the close-cropped outfield grass, an occurence not infrequent at Turner Field. To stand behind home plate during batting practice is to marvel at how much a bouncing ball in the outfield can move from side-to-side.
With the way Hamels has pitched and the Braves have hit lately, that 2-0 lead in the fourth did not look easily surmountable. But Brian McCann answered in the bottom of the fourth with a leadoff homer against the left-hander. It was the first homer since April 20 for McCann, who was in a 2-for-25 slump with no extra-base hits or RBIs in seven games before the homer.
Hamels was charged with six hits and two runs in six inning and got no decision, snapping his three-start winning streak snapped.
The Braves tied the score in the seventh on Juan Francisco’s sacrifice fly, after loading the bases with one out. Freddie Freeman hit a leadoff single and McCann walked before Dan Uggla popped out to first base.
Matt Diaz followed with a bases-loading bloop single to right field. It was the Braves' only hit in six at-bats with runners in scoring position Tuesday, and they are 4-for-36 in that category over the past four games.
Francisco’s fly to left field made the score 2-all, but the Braves settled for one run in a prime scoring opportunity as Tyler Pastornicky grounded out on a nubber in front of home plate to end the inning.
Francisco filled in for injury-plagued third baseman Chipper Jones, who was out of the lineup for reasons not specified by the Braves prior to the game. Jones is 10-for-34 (.294) with two homers in his career against Hamels, and has a .328 average and 15 homers in his past 66 games against the Phillies.
Pastornicky and Diaz made stellar defensive plays behind Beachy in the seventh inning. Pastornicky dove to his right to stab a Hunter Pence liner to start the inning, and Diaz made a running catch on the right-center field warning track, a step before he went into the fence.
Beachy cited those plays when asked about the other hits that fell in for Philly.
“You know, there’s going to be those nights, either for us or tonight it happened for the other team," he said. "You take those where they come. I feel fortunate – they got a couple of those, but it evened out. They hit a couple of balls hard [for outs]. Tyler made an outstanding play, the catch Matt Diaz made … I mean, it all averages out.”
Diaz filled in for Jason Heyward, who missed his second consecutive start with a strained side.
"Once McCann hit that homer, I figured we were going to start rolling," Diaz said. "I never tip my hat to many pitches, but Cole Hamels is one I will constantly tip my hat to. He beared right down after the McCann homer. He got in trouble there with two outs and made the pitches against Francisco.
“He [Hamels] is fun to play against because it’s always going to be a battle, but it’s frustrating as heck because he wins a lot of those battles.”
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