By the end of the sixth inning in Monday night’s loss to Pittsburgh, Nate McLouth and Alex Gonzalez were running even in the volume of boos directed at them by Turner Field fans.
After sitting through a two-hour rain delay before the first pitch, then watching the Braves squander scoring chances, some ticket-buyers let them hear it when, with bases loaded and one out in a 3-0 game, McLouth popped out foul to the catcher and Gonzalez struck out.
The Pirates scored two runs against Tim Hudson in the second inning and cruised to a 3-1 win against the listless Braves to open a four-game series and seven-game homestand.
Chipper Jones, in his first game back from the disabled list, homered to start the eighth inning and assure the Braves avoided a shutout. He then left the game with a strained right quadriceps, which he had hurt two innings earlier when he fielded a slow roller and threw to first base.
"We’ve got to reevaluate it tomorrow," Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said of Jones' injury. "He said [before the eighth inning], ‘I’m gonna need a runner.’ I said, really? He said, ‘Yeah, I’m gonna need a runner.’ And then [Gonzalez makes popping sound with mouth]. Home run.”
The 39-year-old third baseman also singled and stole a base in the third inning, going 2-for-4 in his first game after playing parts of two games on a brief minor-league rehab assignment.
The injury wasn't believed to be serious and Gonzalez wouldn't rule out the possibility of Jones playing Tuesday.
"You guys have been around him," he said. "You’ve see a lot worse stuff, then he’ll come in the next day ready to play.”
Jones took just 16 days to recover from arthroscopic knee surgery, then homered in his fourth at-bat off the DL. It was the switch-hitter's ninth homer of the season and came against right-handed reliever Daniel McCutchen.
The Braves had a chance to do more damage in the inning when Freddie Freeman walked following Jones homer. But Dan Uggla flied out to the center-field warning track, pinch-hitter Brian McCann struck out and McLouth popped out to second base.
It was the first loss in seven starts for Hudson (9-7) and the sixth in 11 games since the All-Star break for the Braves, who remained six games behind first-place Philadelphia in the National League East.
“They’re a good club," Hudson said of the Pirates, who are tied with St. Louis atop the NL Central, a half-game ahead of idle Milwaukee. "They’re not in first place by accident. They made their hits count tonight. They got big hits when they had opportunities to score, and we didn’t. We didn’t get any big hits."
After going 9-1 in a torrid stretch through July 7, the Braves have lost eight of 14 games and seen their wild-card lead trimmed to 3-1/2 games over Arizona. Hudson was charged with three runs and five hits in seven innings, and all three batters he walked wound up scoring.
"You can’t give them any free passes," he said of the walks, including two to start the second inning. "I felt too good tonight, like I had too good a stuff to give them free passes. You’ve got to make them earn their way on the bags.
"I didn’t on occasion, and they made me pay with some base hits when they had opportunities to score.”
Pirates right-hander James McDonald (10-6) allowed eight hits and no walks with nine strikeouts in 5-1/3 scoreless innings. He was replaced in the sixth by former Braves reliever Chris Resop, who set down McLouth and Gonzalez to work out of the bases-loaded jam.
“It feels like we left a small village out there," Fredi Gonzalez said of the missed scoring chances. "We had some opportunities with people on base, and just couldn’t get the knock [hit].”
Alex Gonzalez struck out to end the second, fourth and sixth innings, stranding six runners including three in scoring position. He struck out with runners on the corners in the second and with bases loaded in the sixth, making him 4-for-41 with runners in scoring position and two outs.
The veteran shortstop has driven in five of the 56 runners he’s had in scoring position in those at-bats.
The Braves loaded the bases in the sixth on one-out singles by Freeman and Uggla, who extended their career-best hitting streaks to nine and 16 games, respectively. David Ross reached on a catcher’s interference call to load the before Resop quashed the rally.
"[Hudson] deserved to win the ballgame," Fredi Gonzalez said. "If we get a bloop here, a ball goes through the infield with some of those people on base, some of those opportunities, we may be shaking hands right now. But that didn’t happen. The Pirates got out of some jams.”
Heyward also had a three-strikeout night in another 0-for performance that dropped his average to .221.
McLouth had a bad night in the field, making a poor throw and letting Andrew McCutchen’s two-out RBI single in the sixth roll beneath his glove for an error that allowed the speedster to reach second base.
He said the ball "snaked" on him -- shifted suddenly off its line -- something that outfielders for the Braves and visiting teams have said sometimes happens on Turner Field's close -cropped grass.
Hudson had walked Garrett Jones with one out, and he moved into scoring position when Neil Walker alertly reached out with his bat to hit a grounder to third base on a pitch-out off the plate.
The Pirates did the little things it takes to win. The Braves did not, and fell to 19-34 when the opposition scores first.
The Braves got through first inning unscathed, after giving up at least a run in six of seven games on their just-completed road trip. This time, it was the second inning that proved problematic.
Hudson walked the first two batters of the inning, McCutchen and Pedro Alvarez. Both advanced a base on a flyout to center field when McLouth made a weak throw to third, instead of throwing to second base to prevent Alvarez from advancing and keeping a potential double-play in order.
The runs then scored on a groundout and Michael McKenry’s two-out single.
“You can’t assume [a double play would've occured], but you minimize the damage in that situation," Fredi Gonzalez said. "That put two runners in scoring position. You think with Huddy on the mound, [runners at] first and third, you get a groundball and get the double play."
Gonzalez said he talked about it with McLouth in the dugout.
"It’s a situation where he knows better," the manager said. "As soon as he let it go, I’m sure he knew it wasn’t a good play. But again, we’re not even talking about that play if we put some runs on the board.”
McLouth, a former Pirates center fielder, said that he still wasn't sure it was the wrong play to make, even though his modest arm was no match for McCutchen's wheels. (It was McCutchen who replaced him in center field for Pittsburgh after McLouth was traded to the Braves during the 2009 season.)
"It was just one of those in-between [flyballs]," McLouth said of Monday's play. "It’s one of the fastest runners in the league going to third base, and you don’t want to just make a lollipop throw to second base – I was trying to make a strong throw to the cutoff man. Whether or not he could have cut it off, I’m not sure. I’ll have to watch it.”
[McLouth came back five minutes later, after watching the play in the video room, and acknowledged he threw too high to hit the cutoff man.]
“It ended up not working out that way, but that was my intent," he said.
