Braves rally falls short this time against Cubs

Braves pitcher Tommy Hanson (8-9) had his first bad start in nearly eight weeks -- five innings, seven hits, four earned runs -- and the Cubs avoided a repeat of Friday's bullpen meltdown and snapped an eight-game home losing streak.

"You start to think, here we go again, this is our game to win now," said Conrad, who came through with another of his trademark pressure-packed hits, a pinch double with two out in the eighth and the Braves trailing 5-1.

"We've done a good job this year winning those games, and it's a big reason we are where we are right now with our record," he said. "But, I mean, it's tough. You can't win them all like that."

Conrad was credited with two RBIs on his double to the base of the ivy-covered outfield wall off left-hander Sean Marshall, and a third run scored on the play when the relay throw was dropped. The lead was down to 5-4.

After Omar Infante was intentionally walked and Jason Heyward was hit by a pitch, Martin Prado grounded out with the bases loaded to end the inning.

The Braves still had the ninth inning, however. Their final at-bat.

They lead the majors with 22 wins in their final at-bat, and harbored hopes for a 23rd after Cubs-turned-Braves first baseman Derrek Lee was walked by Cubs closer Carlos Marmol on four pitches to start the ninth inning.

In Friday's series opener, the Braves won 5-3 with three runs in the ninth against Marmol, who walked three before Rick Ankiel's two-out triple.

Cubs fans had to cringe when Marmol started out wild again a day later. But this time he thwarted the Braves' rally.

Eric Hinske flied out before Marmol struck out Alex Gonzalez and pinch-hitter Brian McCann to give the Cubs just their fifth win in 24 games.

"We still almost pulled it off," Braves manager Bobby Cox said. "We know we're not going to do it every night, but we had the runner on [base] to do it. Marmol's tough. If he's around the strike zone, he's just about unhittable."

The Cubs closer has a staggering 105 strikeouts in 57 2/3 innings.

"We had a good fight back," Conrad said. "Tough loss today, but we showed our heart there at the end like we always do. Just came up a little short."

The Braves have won a lot of games late, but it's still far less than a likely proposition. They are 6-42 when trailing after eight innings.

They are also 28-31 when their opponent scores first, as the Cubs did Saturday with two runs in the first inning against Hanson. One first-inning run was unearned after Martin Prado's throwing error, the first of two errors for the third baseman and three for the Braves on Saturday.

The Braves have 94 errors, more than every National League team except the Cubs and Washington Nationals, and nearly twice as many as  Cincinnati, San Francisco or San Diego.

"The cut-off play [in the first inning], Prado got off-balance, tried to make a miraculous throw and couldn't," Cox said when asked generally about the Saturday errors.

The Cubs pushed the lead to 5-0 with three runs in the third against Hanson, who allowed as many earned runs (four) in three innings as he had allowed during his previous five starts combined (34 1/3 innings).

He issued consecutive one-out walks to Starlin Castro and Sprayberry High graduate Marlon Byrd in the third, and both scored when Aramis Ramirez and Tyler Colvin followed with singles.

"I just felt like from the beginning my command wasn't quite there where it has been, that's the biggest thing," said Hanson, who had four walks and four strikeouts and threw 56 strikes in 94 pitches. "I got behind some guys, and it came back to bite me. Even though there was a couple of times where I felt like I made some good pitches, and they just got hits."