Braves lose game to Houston, ground to Philly
When the Atlanta Braves entered the game against the Houston Astros tonight they held first place in the National League East, two games ahead of the Philadelphia Phillies, who had the night off. This gave the Braves a great chance to put a little distance between them and the National League champs by beating a weak Astros team.
Unfortunately, with Kris Medlen (6-2, 3.68 ERA) on the disabled list (right elbow), they had to send Mike Minor to the mound to start what would be his major league debut. Minor pitched a pretty good game (four runs, three earned in six innings of work) and is a great prospect for the Braves. He was selected seventh overall in the 2009 draft and has done well in the minors since being drafted. This won’t hurt the Braves at all in the run up to the pennant race.
“Mike pitched a nice ball game, he really did,” manager, Bobby Cox said. “I don’t think he was nervous, he had great mound presence, and he made some pitches when he had to.” In fact, Minor was the finger in the dam.
An inning after Minor left the game, the Braves gave up six more runs mainly due to sloppy fielding by the battery of Kyle Farnsworth and Brian McCann in the seventh inning. Farnsworth’s wild pitch in that same inning didn’t help matters much either. In all, the Braves surrendered six runs in the seventh, effectively ending the contest.
Farnsworth could only watch as things unraveled in the seventh inning. “There’s not really a whole lot you can do about it,” he said. “You just have to keep your head up and keep going.”
Bobby Cox was philosophical, putting it down to one of those games where they were just unlucky. “We gave up a ton of bloopers in the seventh inning that hurt. We caught all the line drives they ever hit, but we couldn’t catch the bloopers.”
With two more games against the Astros, the Braves are depending on getting a couple of wins because they know the Phillies are right on their tails. "It's not like we were expecting them to quit playing,” said left-handed Brave pitcher Billy Wagner, on the surging Phillies, who are 7-3 for their last 10.
The Phillies are built for the playoffs with some excellent starting pitching, including possibly the best pitcher in baseball over the past five years, Roy Halladay, who moved from Toronto to Philly for one reason only: to get into the playoffs, something he has yet to do in his career.
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