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| Thomson, Braves can't hold off Phils | | By: Bowman / MLB.com | | Fri May 5, 2006 9:04 AM ET
(Pic)- Andruw Jones returns to the dugout after driving in a run with a first-inning groundout. (Rusty Kennedy/AP)
PHILADELPHIA (MLB.com)- John Thomson had earned the right to be considered one of baseball's most unfortunate hurlers.
Though he entered May with the National League's best ERA, a lack of run support was one of the primary reasons he hadn't yet garnered his first win.
When presented with at least a little generosity from his offense at Citizens Bank Park on Thursday night, Thomson pitched as if he had forgotten how to do so with the benefit of a lead, and because of that, he's still in search of his first victory.
Thomson squandered both of the early leads he was presented and provided his first shaky start of the season in a 6-3 loss that allowed the Phillies to gain a two-game series sweep of the Braves, who head into this weekend's series against the Mets needing to right their ship in a hurry.
Since constructing a season-best three-game winning streak, the Braves have been reintroduced to their earlier struggles, losing both of the first two games of the current eight-game road trip. They'll enter the three-game series at Shea Stadium trailing the front-running Mets by seven games.
"We've got to go up there and play well," Jeff Francoeur said. "We need to have a good series. We need to score some runs and jump out. We haven't done that too much this year. We've been playing a lot of close games. In the later innings, we haven't been getting the timely hits."
Giving Thomson a two-run first-inning lead and a one-run advantage in the third inning wasn't enough for Atlanta, which stranded seven runners and recorded just one hit in eight at-bats with runners in scoring position. Ryan Langerhans struck out with the bases loaded to end the sixth inning, and Matt Diaz's seventh-inning leadoff triple went for naught when Marcus Giles, Edgar Renteria and Chipper Jones were retired in succession.
"It just seems like it's a different thing every night that goes wrong," said Braves first baseman Adam LaRoche, whose inability to catch Chipper Jones' potential double-play relay allowed the Phillies to cap their two-run first inning with an unearned run.
Thomson, who had posted a 0.76 ERA in the four starts he made since rejoining the starting rotation, was given a two-run lead before he threw his first pitch. But thanks to his longtime nemesis Jimmy Rollins, both leads he was presented with proved to be short-lived.
Rollins, who has a .343 (12-for-35) career batting average against Thomson, drilled a leadoff homer and then began Philadelphia's decisive two-run third with a single. Both of Rollins' hits came on 0-2 fastballs that the Braves hurler was attempting to throw to the inside part of the plate.
"It's just irritating not to execute my pitches like I know I can," said Thomson, who allowed five runs -- four earned -- and eight hits in six innings.
"I know I can get the ball in, no matter if it's a left-handed hitter or a right-handed hitter. I wasn't doing that. The ball was leaking back over the middle of the plate. Guys at this level don't miss pitches over the middle of the plate."
After allowing Pat Burrell an RBI single in the two-run third, Thomson seemed to regain his form. But before he ended his night, he saw Ryan Howard begin the bottom of the sixth with an opposite-field homer. It was just the third home run he's surrendered in 33 1/3 innings this year.
"It's just one of those days where you're trying to get the ball to a spot on the plate and you leave it out over the middle," Thomson said. "I don't know why. It just happens."
Edgar Renteria extended his hitting streak to 20 games with a single that sparked the Braves' two-run first inning against Phils starter Cory Lidle. After getting doubles from Chipper Jones and LaRoche in that first inning, the Braves didn't register an extra-base hit until Diaz began the seventh with his pinch-hit triple, which was misplayed by Phillies center fielder Aaron Rowand.
"We had runners," Braves manager Bobby Cox said. "We could have broken the game open a little bit. We just didn't get the [timely] hit."
An Andruw Jones sacrifice fly allowed the Braves to regain a one-run lead in the top of the third. But a short time later it, too, was squandered by Thomson, who has been on the mound with a lead in just nine of the 30 innings he's completed as a starter this season.
"I know that my location wasn't where it could have been tonight," Thomson said. "My excuse is my pitches weren't as good as they had been earlier this season."
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