Coming off of Friday night's thrilling 13-inning win over the Nationals, Lance Cormier understood the importance of sustaining the generated momentum and protecting a bullpen that had accounted for 10 of those innings. But still, before recording his seventh out of the evening, he forced Braves manager Bobby Cox to make one of those far-too-familiar early strolls to the mound.
"It's been that way quite a bit," Cox said after Cormier's early struggles factored heavily in the 7-4 loss that the Braves suffered to the Nationals at RFK Stadium on Saturday night.
While allowing five runs -- four earned -- in just two innings, Cormier didn't even last as a long as Friday's starter Chuck James, who at least registered nine outs before taking his premature stroll toward the showers.
By surrendering D'Angelo Jimenez's two-run first-inning homer and Robert Fick's three-run, third-inning homer, Cormier put the Braves in an early hole and at the same time did nothing to increase his confidence. Jimenez hadn't homered in the previous 124 at-bats he'd recorded since April of last year and Fick, whose decisive blast came at the end of a nine-pitch confrontation, had gone deep in just one of his previous 160 at-bats this year.
"He just didn't have much tonight," Cox said. "Generally he has a good hook [curveball] and a good sinker. But everything was just flat. He got behind too many hitters and that's exactly what you can't do."
Unfortunately for Cox, whose team has lost three of the first five games of this road trip, he also didn't have much to choose from in the bullpen. Jo-Jo Reyes strained his right hamstring while shagging balls before the game and both Oscar Villarreal and Tyler Yates were given the night off following the work they'd provided on Friday.
Things got worse in the fourth inning, when Buddy Carlyle hyperextended his right elbow during his fourth-inning at-bat. Like he had in the third, Carlyle kept the Nationals scoreless in the bottom of the fourth. But when he was forced to exit in the fifth, Cox found himself without the long relief option that would've certainly aided his taxed bullpen.
The Atlanta Braves beat the Washington Nationals on Friday night. The teams meet in the second game of the three-game series a RFK Stadium on Saturday night. Lance Cormier starts for the Braves.
"It was a big win for us," said Jeff Francoeur. "We played so long, so we figured, 'Why not win the game?'"
"Every ballgame means a lot to us," said Bobby Cox. "We can't afford any losses hardly at all down the stretch -- a couple, maybe. But we've got to run the table."
"Just one clutch hit and you win [the close games]," said Cox, who received clutch hits from Chipper Jones and Francoeur to go along with stellar work from his bullpen that allowed just two runs in 10 innings of relief.
The Braves climbed over the Milwaukee Brewers in the Wild Card chase as Cincinatti defeated Milwaukee. The Florida Marlins also defeated the Colorado Rockies allowing the Braves to pull within one game of Colorado.
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