NEW YORK – Chipper Jones returned to the Braves lineup, both Dan Uggla and Freddie Freeman extended their now record-setting hitting streaks, and the Braves rolled up five runs in one inning. But an offensive awakening is no match for what's going on right now with the Braves pitching staff.
It showed in an 11-7 loss to the Mets Saturday night.
On the day the Braves disabled one starter in Jair Jurrjens, they now have to wonder about Tommy Hanson. He got beat around for a season-high seven runs and four home runs in 3 1/3 innings, leaving some to question if his shoulder is bothering him again.
“I’ve never made an excuse and I’m not going to,” said Hanson, not exactly denying he’s dealing with some soreness. “I felt good enough to go out there and help my team win the game. They did their part and I didn’t.”
Hanson spent two weeks on the disabled list in June with tendinitis but returned to form shortly thereafter. He had an All-Star-worthy first half and didn’t make the team, most figure, only by snub. But he has struggled since the break, never more than Saturday night.
Five of the eight hits he allowed went for extra bases including the home runs, which matched the career-high four he gave up to the Marlins on Aug. 27, 2010.
“I just didn’t have very good command,” Hanson said. “Actually, I had horrible command.”
Hanson is now 1-3 with an 8.10 ERA in five starts since the All-Star break, giving up 24 earned runs in 26 2/3 innings. Hanson had gone 10-4 with a 2.44 ERA before the All-Star break.
Just at a point in the season when the Braves seem to be figuring things out offensively – new leadoff hitter Michael Bourn had three hits Saturday and Uggla is turning his season around with a 27-game hitting streak, including another three-hit night -- their rotation is no longer their rock.
In the first five games on this trip, Braves starters have combined to allow 24 earned runs in 24 1/3 innings. Tim Hudson was the only one to put up a quality start, which he did in the series-opening win against the Mets Friday night.
“Sometimes guys go through things like that, hitters, pitchers,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. “But you don’t want two or three guys on a five-man pitching staff going through it. So we’ve got to get going a little bit, get like where we normally pitch like, what we’ve seen.”
The Braves are 11-11 since the All-Star break and 9 ½ games behind the Phillies. The Phillies have won nine in a row while the Braves have gone 4-5.
The Braves, who are still 3 ½ games up in the wild card, closed to within 7-6 of the Mets in the seventh but watched reliever George Sherrill give up three runs in the bottom of the inning.
Jones returned to the Braves lineup Saturday night for the first time since July 25 and only the second time in the past 24 games. He had to defer his third spot in the order, and even his default fourth too, to the streaking duo of Uggla and Freeman.
Uggla and Freeman are in lockstep this days and who was Jones to mess with it? He watched from the fifth spot as Uggla extended his hitting streak to 27 games and Freeman to 20 games, both in the third inning. In the process, they became the first Braves teammates in modern history to have concurrent streaks of 20 or more games.
Freeman broke his bat to work a run-scoring single to center field to extend his streak. He’s only three games shy of matching the Alvin Dark’s franchise rookie record when he hit in 23 straight for the 1948 Boston Braves.
A batter later Uggla rolled an infield hit down the third base line to come within one game of Marquis Grissom, who has the third-longest hit streak in Atlanta Braves history with 28 in 1996. Uggla went 3-for-5 with two infield hits and a ninth-inning homer. He has 24 homers on the season, and 12 during this streak.
Those hits, a Jones RBI grounder, and a two-run single by David Ross helped give gave Hanson a 5-2 lead with that five-run inning. But he couldn’t hold it. Hanson gave up a two-run homer to Jason Bay in the third inning to make it 5-4 and a solo shot to eighth-place hitter Josh Thole to tie it leading off the fourth.
Hanson then finished his night the same way it started on a home run by Justin Turner. Turner’s two-run shot to left put the Mets up 7-5 with one out in the fourth.
“It was weird tonight,” Jones said. “It was just like everything Tommy threw up there they were right on. It didn’t matter if it had a wrinkle in it, didn’t matter if it was straight, didn’t matter if it was a change-up. They got barrel to it.”
