Williams Perez rejoined the Braves rotation Friday after a month on the disabled list, and it didn’t take long for the rookie’s previously unblemished record and sub-3.00 ERA to be overwhelmed by the rough seas that the Braves season has become.
Perez was charged with nine runs and failed to make it out of the fifth inning of a 9-3 loss against Philadelphia at Citizens Bank Park, the eighth loss in nine games for the Braves and their moribund offense. The Phillies had four hits and three runs before Perez recorded an out.
“The first inning, right off the get-go, his sinker wasn’t sinking, it was moving laterally,” said manager Fredi Gonzalez, whose Braves have scored 14 runs during their 1-8 skid. ” And they took advantage of it — early in counts, too.”
The Braves, losers of 15 of 19 games, trailed 9-0 after six innings. They were still down 9-1 before Freddie Freeman’s two-run homer in the eighth inning, the 100th home run of the first baseman’s career and his 14th this season.
“There’s no beating around the bush, that was not a pretty game played by the Atlanta Braves tonight,” Freeman said. “But that’s the beauty of baseball, we know we get to come back here tomorrow and hopefully put today in the past and start playing better baseball and get on the winning side.”
Ryan Howard had a three-run double in the four-run first inning and had both a leadoff single and a bases-loaded walk in the five-run fifth inning, raising his career-best total to 146 RBIs in 166 games against the Braves.
His double in the first came after Perez (4-1) had given up consecutive singles to start the game and walked Maikel Franco to load the bases.
“I felt rusty,” Perez said through a translator. “I felt like I hadn’t pitched up here in a month. I tried to battle through it. I was able to make adjustments from the second inning on, but that last inning, things fell apart for me.”
Perez had allowed just four hits, one earned run and one walk with 15 strikeouts in 11 2/3 innings of three Triple-A rehab starts. Against the Phillies, he had four walks (one intentional) and three strikeouts.
“There’s a big difference between Triple-A and the big leagues,” he said. “They’re not swinging at the pitches that they were swinging at down there. They’re a lot more selective up here than down there.”
The Braves were shut out until Eury Perez’s two-out RBI single in the seventh against Phillies starter David Buchanan (2-5), who entered with a 7.00 ERA and had not lasted seven innings in any of his previous seven starts. He went 7 1/3 innings against the Braves and left after Freeman’s opposite-field homer.
The last-place Phillies have won 11 of 13 since the All-Star break. They’re six wins behind the third-place Braves, who fell to a season-worst 11 under .500 (46-57).
The Braves have lost five in a row and 12 of their past 13 road games.
Gonzalez was asked about avoiding a decline in team morale, especially after a game like Friday.
“It always starts with the guy on the hill,” he said, referring to the starting pitcher. “Momentum is the next day’s starter. We’ve got Wis (Matt Wisler) going tomorrow. When you go down four runs at the beginning of the game, it’s tough. (But) you saw guys battling. You saw (Cameron) Maybin beat out a potential double-play ground ball. So you’re looking for those signs.
“You see guys busting their butts, taking the extra base, not giving at-bats away. What did we get today, 11 hits (10)? So those are the signs you look for as a manager and a coach, which is, what are these guys giving? And they’re giving good at-bats, they’re giving you good effort, it’s just right now we’re not scoring runs.”
Perez had been 4-0 with a 2.31 ERA in eight starts before Friday, the only major league pitcher with at least eight starts and no losses. His overall ERA, including three relief appearances, climbed from 2.88 before Friday to 4.14 after he allowed more than twice as many runs against the Phillies as he had allowed in any other game.
The Venezuelan rookie went on the disabled list with a bruised left foot after being hit by a line drive in a June 26 game at Pittsburgh. Perez was forced from that game after 4 2/3 innings, which had been Perez’s shortest start until Friday.
He was pulled in the fifth Friday after allowing five hits to the first six batters in the inning, including Domonic Brown’s two-run homer and an run-scoring single by the pitcher, Buchanan. The final two runs on Perez’s line scored against reliever Matt Marksberry in his major league debut.
Marksberry gave up two singles and walked Howard with the bases loaded to bring in the fifth run of the inning, but the left-hander settled in and threw 1 2/3 innings. The first member of the Braves’ 2013 draft class to reach the majors, Marksberry started the season in high Single-A Carolina and was promoted to Triple-A Gwinnett a month ago without a stop in Double-A.
The Phillies opened the first inning with consecutive singles by Cesar Hernandez and Odubel Herrera. Perez walked Maikel Franco to load the bases, and Howard cleared them with a double to the right-center gap. Brown followed with another single before Perez finally recorded an out – on a sacrifice fly that pushed the lead to 4-0.
