Reds Rally In The Eighth Against Venters, Braves Fall 3-1

Atlanta's first taste of sole possession of first place lasted all of 24 hours.

Another good outing by Randall Delgado went to waste and the Braves fell to the Reds 3-1. Atlanta remains winless on Mondays this year, falling to 0-6.

Delgado was impressive in his 6.2 innings, limiting the Reds to four hits, but Cincinnati took advantage of a costly error in the fourth. With two on and two outs, Reds third baseman Todd Frazier hit a ground ball to Tyler Pastornicky that should've been the third out of the inning. Instead, the rookie shortstop flipped the ball toward second base for the force out expecting Dan Uggla to be there, but the ball met nothing but air and rolled away far enough for Jay Bruce to score from second.

Despite that, the Braves tied the score in the fifth when Michael Bourn hit a one-out triple off Homer Bailey and scored on a very shallow fly ball hit by Martin Prado. That was the only run Bailey allowed in his 6.2 innings, he allowed six hits and struck out three with two walks.

The score was still tied in the eighth when the usually reliable Jonny Venters entered the game, but he immediately ran into trouble. Drew Stubbs led off the inning by reaching base on a swinging bunt, and then advanced to second on a wild pitch. The struggling Brandon Phillips stepped to the plate with one out, and drove a double to center, easily scoring Stubbs. Chris Heisey, already with two hits in the game, added a double of his own to score Phillips and pad the lead.

Atlanta mustered a rally in the eighth, putting two runners on against a tough reliever in Logan Ondrusek, he of a 0.00 ERA. Brian McCann just missed hitting a three-run homer off Aroldis Chapman, and after Chapman walked Chipper Jones to load the bases, Jason Heyward struck out swinging to end the inning.

The bats went quiet in the ninth against Sean Marshall, who earned the save. The Braves left 10 runners on base in the game. Freddie Freeman had to leave the game late with blurred vision in his right eye.