Atlanta Braves vs. Philadelphia Phillies

The Philadelphia Phillies wild-card is starting to crumble. Lousy at home, Philadelphia was able to hold onto first in the NL East by playing terrific baseball away from home, but lately they have fallen back to Earth a bit and face a team they have had little success against this season, the Atlanta Braves.

The Braves (37-40) already know they have won the series from the struggling Phillies (39-36) after winning their second straight with ease, 11-1. The victory was Atlanta’s sixth victory in eight games against the defending champions this season.

Philadelphia has lost five of their last six overall and turned to Cole Hamels on Wednesday to stop their losing ways. Hamels was the MVP of the NLCS and the World Series and is definitely the Phils’ ace, but he has struggled lately, just like his teammates.

Hamels was seeking his fifth straight victory at Turner Field and has played very well in his career against the Braves, but he lasted only four innings after surrendering seven runs on nine hits.

Philadelphia is in danger of toppling from first place as the Florida Marlins—yes the Florida Marlins are knocking at the door, just a half game behind.

Perhaps a new ace is emerging in J.A. Happ (5-0, 3.00) who posted his first career shutout over the Toronto Blue Jays when he allowed five hits, no walks and threw just 100 pitches to get the complete game victory, 10-0.

Philadelphia has not gotten that many runs in the last eight games, so Happ should not realistically expect that sort of support again.

Meanwhile the Braves can sweep the Phillies at home for the first time since April 22-24, 2005 and drop it into a virtual tie with the idle Marlins. While Atlanta is in fourth place, they feel they have a legitimate chance at capturing the NL East, which is suddenly wide open.

Following the Phillies and Marlins, the New York Mets are two games out of first and the Braves are just three.

Atlanta Braves will go with Javier Vazquez (5-7, 3.04) for the sweep, but needs his batters to get him some runs after allowing just one run in his last outing, which resulted in a 1-0 loss to the Boston Red Sox on Saturday.

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