Last year, the Braves seemed to bring out the best in the Phillies. A 6-6 regular season, the big upset in the National League Championship Series - it was Atlanta's lot to lament the lost chances and muffed plays.
Now it seems to be the Phillies' turn. Last night at Veterans Stadium, the Phillies let a cool three-run lead over the first three innings slip sloppily through their sweating hands, losing, 9-4, in front of 47,523 fans and dropping 12 games behind the NL East-leading Braves.
The Braves are 4-0 against the Phillies this season, including that 9-8, 15-inning victory on May 10, when they scored seven in the ninth inning.
Comparatively, this was not as bad. But it happened with Phils ace Danny Jackson on the hill. And with Tom Glavine, who had allowed 10 runs in two previous starts, facing them.
And it happened in the fourth inning, with a formula seen so often this season: a misplayed ball, a couple of hits, another misplayed ball, a big home run.
As if for effect, spectacular lightning flashed amid it all.
Call it "The Unnatural." Certainly rightfielder Tom Marsh's gyrations in tracking two balls that inning would make any contortionist jealous.
The fourth began with Marsh - just called up from Triple A Scranton/ Wilkes-Barre - chasing Roberto Kelly's drive to the base of the wall, then chasing it halfway back toward the infield after it bounced off the wall.
That was no big sin; the speedy Kelly would have reached second anyway. But after Jackson struck out Fred McGriff, he surrendered two sharp singles to David Justice and Charlie O'Brien, cutting the lead to 3-1. Bill Pecota lofted a ball high and toward the foul line in rightfield, and Marsh legged his way in to catch it.
He slipped slightly on the wet warning track. Then he seemed to lose sight of the ball, which bounced about a foot inside the line. As he turned to retrieve it, it bounced behind him again, as if the two were repelling each other.
"I had it the whole way," he said afterward. "I don't want to make excuses. I just missed it."
By the time he retrieved it, it was 3-2, with runners on second and third. Righthanded-hitting second baseman Mark Lemke, with two home runs in his 224 previous at-bats, stepped in and, on a 3-2 slider, slapped a three-run home run just over the yellow line in left-center.
Just like that, 5-3 Braves.
Jackson, who allowed nine hits and five earned runs in six innings, lost for the first time since May 18, and is 9-2.
