The figurative first half of the season ended in dismal fashion for the Braves, who lost their closer to a season-ending injury Saturday and then were pounded by the Rockies for their fifth consecutive loss Sunday.
After the Braves scored three runs to tie in the sixth inning, the Rockies answered with five runs in the bottom of the inning, including Troy Tulowitzki’s three-run homer, rolling to a 11-3 win for a four-game sweep at Coors Field.
The Braves, after winning six of their first seven games in July, lost their last five in a row before the All-Star break, going 2-5 on a trip that began with a pair of wins at Milwaukee and went straight into the dumpster from there.
Alex Wood (6-6) was charged with 10 hits and seven runs in 5 2/3 innings. The last two runs on Wood’s ledger came when Tulowitzki homered off reliever David Carpenter, who also gave up a two-run homer to Drew Stubbs in the seventh as the game spiraled on the Braves.
“We just didn’t pitch very well and play very well for four days,” Braves catcher A.J. Pierzynski said. “After the way we played in Milwaukee the first two games, then to come here and play like that … But that’s the way it goes sometimes. You just have to keep fighting and keep doing it the right way. We’ve done that all year and we’re not going to stop now.”
The Nationals and Mets won Sunday, dropping the Braves (42-47) to seven games behind first-place Washington and five behind second-place New York in the National League East at the break. If they were on the fence about whether to be buyers or sellers at the July 31 trade deadline, they are almost certainly leading toward the latter now.
“I don’t know,” said manager Fredi Gonzalez, whose Braves dropped five after getting back to .500. “That’s something that you’ll have to talk to (president of baseball operations) John (Hart) and (assistant general manager John Coppolella) about. I would have liked to come out here and get a series win and keep the momentum going and go into the second half of the season playing well and not have to worry about what you’re trying to get at (with that question).”
The Rockies, after going 2-9 with 29 runs scored in their previous 11 games, outscored the Braves 24-11 in their first home sweep this season. They had a season-high 17 hits Sunday and Wood gave up 10 hits for the third time his past five starts. Wood noted that several of the key ones were ground balls, choppers or bloops.
“End of the day, whatever the numbers are, it is what it is,” the left-hander said. “Obviously you’re angry. You never want to lose. Especially you don’t want to lose the last couple of games going into the break. But I just think as far as how I threw, it definitely wasn’t as bad as it ended up looking.”
Hot-hitting Braves center fielder Cameron Maybin, who was a late scratch due to illness, though he pinch-hit late. His replacement, Eury Perez, had three of their eight hits including a first-inning double. After Nick Markakis followed with a walk, Rockies right-hander Chad Bettis struck out Kelly Johnson and Juan Uribe consecutively to end the first inning.
There wasn’t another Braves hit until Andrelton Simmons’ fifth-inning single. The Braves have averaged 2.8 runs in 23 games since Freddie Freeman left the lineup with a wrist injury. He might not be back until the end of July.
Wood gave up three runs on four hits and two walks in the second inning, including a two-out, two-run single by Charlie Blackmon, the North Gwinnett High graduate who had 10 hits in the series.
Blackmon, who also played at Georgia Tech and Young Harris College, had three hits and four RBIs Sunday, including another two-out two-run single off Wood on a 1-2 hanging curveball in the sixth that Gonzalez and Wood called the biggest pitch of the game.
“It was the right pitch, just the execution – left it out over the plate to Blackmon, and all of a sudden that becomes a five-run inning,” Gonzalez said. “And that’s just the way it’s going. You hate to pinpoint on one pitch in an entire game, but that pitch right there, if we get him out there it’s a different ballgame.”
