Friday night was the picture of frustration for the Atlanta Braves. To sum things up, the Braves fell to their fourth consecutive defeat with a 1-0 loss at the hands of the Philadelphia Phillies, but in reality, a simple glance at the boxscore (even a 1-0 result) didn't quite do this one justice.
For starters, the Braves did not scratch with a hit until the fifth inning. Against an "ace"-level pitcher, that may have been slightly less frustrating, but Atlanta was blanked by none other than Aaron Harang. In fairness, the veteran right-hander has been pitching on a quality level for more than a year, but on this night, he did whatever he wanted to do.
A.J. Pierzynski did break up the no-hit bid with a double in the fifth, and that was quickly followed by a single by Chris Johnson to place runners at the corners with only one out. Seemingly on cue, Andrelton Simmons grounded into a double play to end the threat, and in short, that was easily the best chance for the visiting Braves to score a run on this particular evening.
Somewhat fortunately, the Phillies were equally inept offensively for eight innings. Ryan Howard came a few feet from a three-run home run in the first inning, but outside of that, Atlanta starter Alex Wood wasn't exactly battered around, allowing five hits and two walks in 5.2 innings of scoreless baseball.
The "dagger" on Friday night came, predictably, in the bottom of the ninth. The Braves could mount nothing in the way of offense in the late innings, and only two hits overall, and Philadelphia finally capitalized on the horrific defense played by Atlanta throughout the night. Freddie Freeman was unable to come up with a ground ball struck by Ben Revere, and Freddy Galvis scored from third on what was Atlanta's fourth error of the night.
Analysis can be an interesting animal for a game like this, but the Atlanta Braves failed to generate offense and they failed to put an effective defensive product on the field. Four straight losses in April isn't the end of the world or anything close, but Saturday night's game can't arrive soon enough.