{"id":536,"date":"2009-05-09T20:48:05","date_gmt":"2009-05-10T01:48:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/?p=536"},"modified":"2009-05-09T20:48:05","modified_gmt":"2009-05-10T01:48:05","slug":"phillies-lose-to-the-braves-and-slip-out-of-first-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/?p=536","title":{"rendered":"Phillies lose to the Braves and slip out of First place"},"content":{"rendered":"

Javier Vazquez(notes) kept his pitches down and in the strike zone. Even in a hitter-friendly park, that\u2019s a formula for success.<\/p>\n

Vazquez pitched neatly into the eighth inning, Yunel Escobar(notes) and Brian McCann(notes) hit two-run homers and the Atlanta Braves beat the Philadelphia Phillies 6-2 on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Vazquez (3-3) allowed two runs and four hits, striking out seven in 7 2-3 innings. He had no walks and also helped himself with a double that started a three-run rally in the fifth.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnytime you win here is a good win,\u201d Vazquez said. \u201cThey score a lot of runs. You can\u2019t walk people in parks like this, and I was getting my first pitch over for strikes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chase Utley(notes) hit his 10th homer and Raul Ibanez(notes) also went deep for the Phillies, who got another poor performance from a starting pitcher. Joe Blanton(notes) (1-3) gave up six runs and eight hits in eight innings.<\/p>\n

Blanton\u2019s shaky start was the latest in a slew of rough outings for a rotation that played a vital role in helping the Phillies win the World Series last season. Philadelphia\u2019s starters are 7-10 with a 6.47 ERA.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s one of those where you can go home and take a lot of positives out of it,\u201d Blanton said. \u201cNinety-eight percent of the time, if I throw the ball that well, I\u2019m not going to give up six runs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Phillies manager Charlie Manuel was somewhat encouraged.<\/p>\n

\u201cOverall, he battled, changed speeds,\u201d Manuel said. \u201cHis mistakes got him in trouble. The ball is carrying right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vazquez was hitless in his first 12 at-bats this season before lining a one-out double down the left-field line in the fifth. He scored on Kelly Johnson\u2019s(notes) double. Escobar followed with a drive to the seats in left-center for a 4-1 lead.<\/p>\n

McCann, wearing glasses after missing 13 games with an eye infection, connected in the eighth to make it 6-1. McCann wore a new mask behind the plate and didn\u2019t have trouble with his glasses fogging up.<\/p>\n

Ibanez hit one into the second deck in right field in the eighth for his ninth homer.<\/p>\n

Utley is off to another strong start. The All-Star second baseman belted 21 of his career-best 33 homers in the first 59 games last year, but hit only 12 in the final 103 games. He played through a hip injury, waiting until after the season to have surgery.
\nJeff Francoeur(notes) lined an RBI single off the wall in left to give the Braves a 1-0 lead in the second.<\/p>\n

Vazquez bounced back from two subpar starts. He gave up 11 runs in 14 2-3 innings against St. Louis and the New York Mets, losing both games.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s really pitched well all year,\u201d Braves manager Bobby Cox said. \u201cHe\u2019s been in every game he\u2019s started.\u201d -yahoo.com<\/em><\/p>\n

Lucky for us it’s a long season. \u00a0Enjoy it while you can Mets because we know how you guys do in September \ud83d\ude42 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Javier Vazquez(notes) kept his pitches down and in the strike zone. Even in a hitter-friendly park, that\u2019s a formula for success. Vazquez pitched neatly into the eighth… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philadelphia_phillies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=536"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":538,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536\/revisions\/538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}