So much for the grand send-off.
The Braves headed to Washington Sunday evening for the series of the season, one that could clinch the NL East division, on the heels of a 4-0 loss to the Padres.
The Braves’ offensive woes continued. They were no-hit by Padres rookie Burch Smith for five innings before Braves starter Julio Teheran rolled a single up the middle for the first hit of the game.
Atlanta managed only three singles in seven shutout innings by Smith, who won his first major league decision to help the Padres claim the weekend series.
“We just didn’t score any runs the whole series,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said.
The Braves scored just five runs in three games, two of them losses, and concluded the series with their 14th shutout loss of the season. But they weren’t going to spend a lot of time dwelling on what they didn’t do. The Braves’ magic number remained at four, but simple math lies ahead in Washington: If they win two of three against the Nationals, they clinch.
“We know going into Washington, we win the series, we win the division,” Braves third baseman Chris Johnson said. “So that’s pretty cool. Go in there and win some games and see if we can get this thing over with.”
The Braves are 6-8 in September — the Nationals are a scorching 11-3 — but the Braves take the confidence from what they’ve done against the Nationals all season. The Braves have won four of their five series and split the other, winning 12 of 16 games in all.
The Braves will also avoid the Nationals’ top three pitchers, Stephen Strasburg, Gio Gonzalez and Jordan Zimmermann. They have faced both Strasburg and Gonzalez in each of the first five series this season.
Based on what Nationals manager Davey Johnson was telling reporters after Washington’s eighth win in nine games Sunday, they’re coming in hungry too.
“We played them a lot of close games, but we didn’t hold our own with them,” said Johnson, whose Nationals were 4 1/2 games back in the NL wild card. “And we need to at least send a message to them these next three days that we’re better than them.”
Asked if he really thought they were better than the Braves, Johnson said: “I always believed we’re better than them.”
The Braves are going to have to pick it up offensively to make those words ring hollow. They are hitting .223 in September while averaging 3.4 runs per game. They’ve scored three or fewer runs nine times in 14 games.
They didn’t score at all Sunday despite facing a rookie with a 9.17 ERA making his fifth major league start. Smith, a former 14th round pick from the University of Oklahoma, struck out 10. The three hits he allowed included seeing-eye singles by Teheran and Justin Upton and a tough-hop single by Johnson off Chase Headley at third base.
“The guy was OK,” Gonzalez said. ”I’m not going to say he was really, really good. He threw some quality strikes when he threw them in the strike zone. He was comfortably wild. He threw some balls out of the strike zone and down in the strike zone, and we just couldn’t get a good read on him.”
Headley, meanwhile, seemed to get a read on every Braves pitcher he faced this weekend. He hit his daily home run, this time a two-run job off Teheran, to give the Padres a 3-0 lead in the sixth inning. It was his third home run in three games this series, coming off Jordan Walden, Craig Kimbrel and Teheran.
Headley became the first player to hit at least one homer in every game of a three-game series against the Braves since Lance Berkman did it with the Astros in 2007. According to Stats LLC, Headley is the 18th player to do so since the Braves moved to Atlanta in 1966. He joined a list that includes Carlos Beltran, Albert Pujols, Barry Bonds, Will Clark, Johnny Bench and Willie Stargell.
Teheran pitched five shutout innings before the three-run sixth and the Padres added a solo home run by Tommy Medica in the seventh.
Teheran retired 13 in a row before Will Venable singled with one out in the sixth. Venable stole second and scored on a two-out single by Jedd Gyorko. Headley followed by sending a 3-2 Teheran slider into the right field seats for a 3-0 lead.
“I asked him also if it was a good pitch,” said Teheran, who spent some time at third base after reaching base in the sixth. “He told me that it was a good pitch. I said, ‘OK, you got me this time.’”
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