Philadelphia — When Tommy Hanson and Kris Medlen return to their Buckhead apartment next week, the Braves rookies will have one more thing to talk about.
How to pitch to Phillies slugger Ryan Howard. Or, how not to.
The Braves’ nemesis hit homers off Hanson and Medlen in his first two at-bats Friday, driving in three runs to power Philadelphia to a 4-2 win in a series opener delayed twice in the second inning by rain at Citizens Bank Park.
“He’s got so much power, and this is a high school field,” Braves catcher Brian McCann said of Howard, who has four homers and seven RBIs in his past two games against the Braves, including a two-homer game Aug. 16 at Atlanta.
The seventh loss in 14 games for the Braves — including three in four games against Philadelphia — dropped them to eight behind the division-leading Phillies in the National League East.
Hanson (9-3) pitched only two innings because of rain delays seven minutes apart in the second. He was charged with one run and two hits with four strikeouts, and snapped a four-start winning streak.
The rookie sensation was frustrated over the start-and-stop second inning and not being able to pitch more in a game he was excited about, his first against Philadelphia. But he knew it was the prudent call to not have him keep pitching.
“You don’t know what’s going on; you’ve just got to go with it,” he said of the soggy day and night in which no one was sure until about an hour before the first pitch whether the game would be postponed.
He returned after the first delay (1 hour, 3 minutes), striking out two of the last three batters to complete the second inning. Then play was halted again.
“It’s a tough call,” Cox said of the decision to restart after the first delay, when radar showed more rain on the way. “It’s not our ballpark. ... If someone knew it was going to rain six minutes after we started playing again, then yeah, you wish we would’ve waited.”
Hanson gave up an opposite-field homer to Howard to the nearby left-field bleachers, an easy poke for the left-handed slugger.
“I don’t even think it was a strike,” Hanson said. “It was a slider, up. I was trying to make a quality pitch. Left it up a little bit.”
McCann said: “With a guy that strong, he doesn’t even have to come out of his swing. Playing here, he can wait as long as he can and just flip ’em to left.”
After aging Pedro Martinez pitched two scoreless innings in his fourth start for the Phillies, already-aged lefty Jamie Moyer (12-9) pitched 4-1/3 strong innings (four hits, one run).
Medlen, pitching for the second night in a row, made two mistakes to the first batters in his second inning — Utley’s leadoff single in the fourth, followed four pitches later by Howard’s mammoth homer to center on a change-up.
Medlen had gotten ahead in the count 1-2 on three pitches at the shins or lower, but the change-up was near the knees, on the outer half of the plate.
“Howard, he beat me,” Medlen said. “He just likes getting [his arms] extended. ... It’s my first time facing him. I’m make adjustments.”
Howard’s homer off Medlen gave him four homers in a span of five at-bats against the Braves. He drove in all the runs with homers in a 4-1 win Aug. 16.
He has ravaged Braves pitching throughout his career, batting .339 with 29 homers and 82 RBIs in 79 games, including 18 homers and 50 RBIs in his past 41 games.
Hot-hitting Matt Diaz had the first three-double game of his career, but the rest of the Braves produced only five singles, including two by Martin Prado.
The Braves had two on with one out in the second and again in the third, and failed to score. With runners on the corners against Moyer (12-9) in the third, Chipper Jones popped out and McCann struck out to end the inning.
Diaz drove in a run in the fifth and scored on Jones’ groundout in the eighth, but the Braves left the bases loaded in the latter inning.
“We just didn’t swing the bats tonight,” McCann said. “Jamie Moyer came in and pitched a great game.”
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