Braves continue to struggle, drop second game and series to Phillies

After dropping the first game of their home series with the Philadelphia Phillies on Monday, the Atlanta Braves dropped their series tonight, losing 5-2.

All in all, it was a pretty rough game for the Braves, who aren’t doing much of anything right at the moment. The pitching has been much worse than the start of the season, the bullpen has continued to struggle–most notably Luis Avilan–and the offense isn’t doing much to pick up any of the slack.

The team went for just six hits in this one, with Jason Heyward leading the way out of the leadoff spot with a 2-4 game that featured his tenth double of the season. Tommy La Stella failed to get a hit in what seems like the first game of his career and Evan Gattis wasn’t in the lineup to put the team on his back.

Ervin Santana continued his trend of looking like a middle/back of the rotation pitcher in this one, allowing four runs (three earned) over six innings of work and giving up eight hits and three walks. He struck out five batters and threw 110 pitches (69 for strikes) on the night.

Notes:

The Braves twittersphere almost melted down in the top of the ninth inning of this one after two “errors” from Andrelton Simmons. You can tell things aren’t going well for the Braves because of the reaction because neither of these plays were terrible. The first, was definitely the bigger mistake as Simmons got to a ball far in the hole, and slipped while transferring but still tried to make the throw at first. It went wild and the batter advanced to second base. Later in the inning, he simply got a terrible hop and a run scored because of it. But if there’s anything not to freak out about with the Braves–it’s Andrelton Simmons’ defense. Let’s settle down people:

Don’t be the guy who overreacts to dumb stats:

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Apparently Justin Upton was removed from the game because of some lightheadedness:

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Don’t freak out now, but the Braves aren’t doing so hot lately in the divisional race. With a win tonight, the dreaded Washington Nationals would take over as sole owners of the top spot in the NL East.