PHILADELPHIA — The Braves were no-hit for five innings by Roy Oswalt, then had a call overturned by umpires in the sixth that could have shifted momentum entirely to the Phillies in their raucous, sold-out Citizens Bank Park.
The Braves weathered that storm and took a 2-1 lead in the seventh inning Wednesday night.
But it wasn’t enough.
Freddie Freeman’s RBI single in the seventh gave the Braves their only lead of the series, 2-1, but the Phillies came back to tie in the eighth against Jonny Venters and pulled out a 3-2 win on Ross Gload’s walk-off single in the ninth.
The Braves were swept for the first time this season, and have lost five of their past six to fall to 10 1/2 games behind National League East-leader Philadelphia.
“Oswalt pitched good, but we were winning 2-1 going into the eighth inning,” Braves utility man Eric Hinske said. “So you can’t hang your heads. We’re going to keep grinding; there’s nothing else to do. We came in here and got swept, but there’s still 20 games to go. We’ve still got a nice [wild-card] lead, just keep your heads up and keep going. That’s all you can do.”
Gload’s one-out single to right field drove in the winning run against reliever Peter Moylan, who gave up a walk and two hits while recording one out in his second appearance in four months since returning from back surgery.
Raul Ibanez drew a one-out walk, and Carlos Ruiz singled before Gload’s walk-off single to right field.
"We had the right guys out there to win it," said Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez. "You’ve got to give credit to [Placido] Polanco; that was a pretty nasty pitch that Venters threw to him, and he poked it out there in right field.
“You’ve got to tip your hat to those guys. They’re playing real well right now. They’re pitching, they’re getting timely hitting, they’re playing good baseball. And right now, we’re not scoring any runs."
On Polanco’s tying single in the eighth off Venters, right fielder Jason Heyward’s throw home was at least 10 feet up the third-base line, enabling John Mayberry to score easily.
“They scored a run off the strength of our ballclub,” third baseman Chipper Jones said, referring to Venters, a star of their vaunted bullpen. “Nine times out of 10, sometimes more than that, the game’s over. Polanco hit a good pitch. Nothing you can do about it.
“They won it in the ninth. You can’t walk away from it thinking that you played bad or you gave it to them. They just beat us in a really good ballgame. We’ll take our spanking and try to win a doubleheader tomorrow in New York.”
Venters didn't think as highly of the pitch he made to Polanco.
“It was up a little bit," he said. "I didn’t keep the ball down. Didn’t make a pitch. He made me pay for it... For me to come in and give up the lead like that -- no excuse. I didn’t do my job, didn’t make pitches.”
The outcome left the Phillies as the only major league team not to be swept in a three-game series and increased what had already been a seemingly insurmountable lead over the Braves in the division race.
The Braves bused to New York immediately after the game for a makeup doubleheader Thursday against the Mets. Then it’s on to St. Louis for a three-game series that begins Friday against the Cardinals, who trimmed the Braves’ wild-card lead to 6 1/2 games.
The Braves have scored only 26 runs in 10 games during their 3-7 skid.
“September is not the ideal time to be going through a swoon, but here we are," said Jones, who singled to drive in the tying run in the sixth. "The only way we’re going to get out of it is to play just a hair better.”
Oswalt and Braves rookie Brandon Beachy pitched splendidly, but neither figured in the decision. Beachy allowed two hits, one run and one walk with seven strikeouts in 5 2/3 innings, including Raul Ibanez's two-out homer in the second inning on a full-count pitch.
Asked if he'd have done anything different on the Ibanez homer, Beachy said, “I would have thrown one of those three curveballs for a strike, then it wouldn’t have been a full count....
“I liked the results, obviously, other than the one batter. But again, I threw without my changeup tonight. Got away with it a lot, but I was falling behind because I couldn’t throw my off-speed for a strike. Just kept bailing myself out with fastballs.”
The Braves were outscored 15-3 in the first two games of the series against the Phillies, and trailed 1-0 through five innings Wednesday before scoring a run in each of the sixth and seventh innings to take the lead.
Michael Bourn’s leadoff double in the sixth was the first hit against Oswalt, who was charged with two runs and four hits in seven innings. He got no decision and remained a hard-to-believe 1-3 with a 5.15 ERA in 11 regular-season starts against the Braves.
Gonzalez was ejected in the sixth inning for arguing with umpires following their decision to overturn a call that turned an inning-ending flyout to Heyward into a Polanco single that put runners on first and second.
Replays showed the umps were right to overturn the original call by first-base umpire C.B. Bucknor. The ball bounced just in front and into Heyward’s glove on his diving attempt. The Braves had already gone into their dugout, and the grounds crew was dragging the infield when the umpires convenened and reversed the call.
That was only the second hit allowed by Beachy, who was replaced by left-hander Eric O’Flaherty at that point with Chase Utley coming to bat.
O’Flaherty hit Utley in the back of his batting helmet with his first pitch to load the bases and bring up dangerous Ryan Howard. But Howard isn’t nearly as dangerous against lefties as against right-handers, and he struck out to end the inning with the bases loaded in a 1-1 game.
Howard struck out again with two on to end the eighth against the Braves’ other top lefty reliever, Venters. But the damage had already been done against Venters, who gave up the tying run on Polanco’s two-out single, after a leadoff single by John Mayberry.
Utley left the game soon after being hit by O’Flaherty and was being monitored for signs of a possible concussion. He was scheduled to see a doctor on Thursday and not accompany the Phillies on the start of their road trip.
