Chipper Jones injured, sits out

He has missed games this season for groin, thumb and toe injuries, but he still led the Braves in games played (97) before Friday. The severity of the injury wasn’t immediately known, but the Braves can’t afford to go without Jones for long with their postseason chances beginning to fade.

On Thursday, they took a two-run lead to the ninth against the Dodgers and came away defeated and demoralized. The Braves were blistered by Andre Ethier’s three-run, game-ending homer off closer Rafael Soriano.

“I don’t take any satisfaction out of anything that happened last night,” Jones said of the 5-4, series-opening loss. “That was a crusher for me, personally. That one hurt as bad as any this year.

“We had won a couple of games in a row in San Diego and came in here ready to set the tone for the series. We’d done everything we could up to that point. We couldn’t have scripted it any better, and it just blew up on us.”

Instead of notching a win that would have pushed them past Florida into second place in the National League East and moved them within 4-1/2 games of the wild-card lead, the Braves dealt with wrenching defeat.

They watched the Dodgers celebrate a majors-leading 29th come-from-behind win after Ethier’s majors-leading fifth “walk-off” hit.

On Friday, the Braves were still answering questions about a loss that weighed heavier than most, given how it went down and the timing, with less than a third of the season remaining and Philadelphia widening its division lead.

Reliever Peter Moylan, who pitched brilliantly to work out of jams in the seventh and eighth innings and preserve the 4-2 lead, said he was “shocked” to see Soriano give up a homer.

While Soriano has been superb for most of the season, Ethier’s homer was the second game-ending homer in 10 days against Soriano, who gave up a two-run shot by Florida’s Ross Gload for a 4-3 loss July 28.

He had a 10.13 ERA in his past seven appearances after Thursday, with seven hits, six runs and two homers allowed in 5-1/3 innings. In 43 appearances before that, Soriano converted 13 of 14 saves while posting a 1.41 ERA and allowing 23 hits, seven runs and one homer in 44-2/3 innings.

Soriano said he didn’t have his “best stuff” and ran into bad luck. Manager Bobby Cox and Jones also referred to luck on the Dodgers’ side in the ninth.

Juan Pierre led off the inning with a slow-bouncing hit that Jones charged and tried to field with his bare hand, knowing it was the only way he had any chance at all to throw out Pierre. He failed to pick it up cleanly.

Jones regretted moving back on the infield after Pierre fouled off the previous pitch, a decision Jones made on his own. He normally plays in on Pierre, but said with Soriano throwing so hard, he figured if Pierre hit a ball it would be to the left side, and Jones wanted to cover more ground by backing up.

“What are the odds of him hitting a nubber?” Jones said. “Low and behold, he hits a nubber.”

Rafael Furcal followed with a single through the right side of the infield, the hole there wider because Adam LaRoche was near the base with Pierre on first.

Next up was Ethier, and Soriano got behind 2-and-0. Ethier drove a down-the-middle fastball to the right-field seats, his third homer (and seventh, eighth and ninth RBIs) in four games against the Braves this season.

“It goes to show you what falling behind hitters will do,” Jones said. “Raffy’s done a great, great job all season long staying ahead of hitters and keeping hitters off-balance. It doesn’t matter how hard you throw, if you fall behind against good major-league hitters, and throw down the middle, they’re going to do that.”