Phils Menace Braves’ Bullpen, Stops Their Winning Streak at Seven

The Braves’ Tim Hudson supplied a quality start, allowing three runs in seven innings, but Vladimir Nunez gave up four Phillie runs in the ninth inning. Jimmy Rollins homered back-to-back off Nunez and the Phillies took the first game of the series, 9-4.This puts the Braves 8.5 games behind Philadelphia in the NL East. with only 15 games left to play. Even if Atlanta can take the final two games of the series, they can probably only hope for a wild card spot.

For the first time since 2006, the Braves have pieced together a seven-game winning streak. Their bats have finally started to catch up with their arms, as they’ve averaged over six runs per game over the past seven games.

Another possibility: the Braves trail the NL East-leading Phillies by 7.5 games, and the two teams kick off a three-game series in Atlanta on Friday. A sweep (hey, if you can win seven straight, what’s three more?) would suddenly make the division race a contest again.

After winning 14 consecutive division titles, it appears as if the Atlanta Braves are headed to the golf course for the fourth consecutive October. Atlanta is now seven games behind wild card leading Colorado.

This blog post by Jeff Schultz of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution basically concedes that the Braves will miss the playoffs:

They have a season-long losing streak of five straight. Manager Bobby Cox came as close as he’ll ever come to a concession speech when he said Sunday, “We need to just about sweep on the road to get back in this thing.” The Braves will miss the playoffs for the fourth straight season. Schultz continues by discussing how Atlanta is now on the wrong side of a playoff streak:

Now the worst news: The Braves rank next to the bottom third in baseball in terms of active droughts. Only 10 teams currently have longer streaks. This doesn’t quite balance out 14 straight title division titles, but it’s somewhat alarming. It’s going to be tough for Atlanta to get back to the playoffs. The NL East looks like it will be a beast of a division for the next few years, with the Phillies strong as ever and a young Marlins team. The Mets are also likely to be a contender with their liberal spending, assuming they can get healthy.