By Dave Holcomb
Atlanta completed their three game sweep of the Philadelphia Phillies despite their weekend celebration of the 20th anniversary of the 1993 National League Champion Phillies. The Fighting Phils may have done better with the old players on the field.
The Braves stayed red hot as they have won 10 games in a row for the second time this season, a feat not accomplished since the Cardinals did it in 2001. The Phillies are going in the exact opposite direction, which became obvious when, a majority of the crowd left before the ninth inning started.
Philadelphia even had the edge in the starting pitches with their ace Cliff Lee on the mound returning to make his first start since July 21st because of a neck injury. Lee struggled with his command at times giving up eight hits and two walks. Lee has only walked 24 hitters this season in his 149 2/3 innings pitched.
The visitors hit Philly’s ace hard and immediately scoring on Third Baseman Chris Johnson’s two-run single in the first. Johnson, who was already leading the National League in hitting, went 2-for-4 with two RBI on Sunday night and raised his average to .346.
Outfielder Jason Heyward and First Baseman Freddie Freeman reached base on a walk and single and both scored on the Johnson’s single. Since being moved to the lead off spot eight games ago, Heyward is batting .367 with 13 runs scored and nine RBI.
Braves Manager moved fellow Outfielder Justin Upton to the second spot in the lineup, which has also paid dividends as Upton has a hit in each of his last nine games, and went 2-for-4 with a double and RBI on Sunday.
His brother B.J. nearly had a home run but had to settle for a double after the umpires reviewed the play and ruled a fan reached over to touch the ball still in play. B.J. Upton also hit 2-for-4 with a double on Sunday.
As impressive as the bats have been, Atlanta seems to have found another great starting pitcher to use down the stretch. Pitcher Alex Wood made just his fourth major league Sunday going six innings and allowing one run on two hits. In his last two starts, Wood has pitched 13 innings and given up four runs.
The Phillies hitters may have been distracted with Wood’s unorthodox windup. The lefty’s motion is very jerky and appears to right-handed batter that Wood is throwing the ball directly at him. With this win, Wood improved to 2-2. Closer Craig Kimbrel came in the ninth to nail down the win. Kimrel saved all three games of the series against Philadelphia this weekend.
This loss is the 13th loss suffered by the Phillies in their last 14 games. The struggle has been on offense as they have the 3rd worst offense in the National League in terms of run production.
On Sunday night, the team and scored one run and even though it was a three run lead for much of the game, it felt as if the Braves were blowing out the Phillies based on the atmosphere at Citizen’s Bank Park.
Philadelphia’s one run came in the bottom of the third when Catcher Carlos Ruiz lead off with a fly ball off the top of the wall. Initially ruled a homer like Upton’s drive, the umpires reviewed the play and made Ruiz go back to second. He moved to third on Cliff Lee’s bunt and then scored on Michael Young’s ground out. The Phillies had only two other hits in the game.
The Braves at 67-45 now lead the NL East by 12.5 games and will take their winning streak to Washington on Monday.
The Phillies will open a series versus the Cubs on Monday, who comes into the game losers of their last four. Luckily for these two clubs, somebody has to win.
Right now, the Braves are playing like the best team I’m baseball, the Phils like the worst. Bad time for this match-up, unless you are a diehard Braves fan!