Sheets Stymies Philadelphia As Braves Beat Phillies 6-1

Winners of six straight games against the Phillies, the Braves made sure not to overlook Philadelphia tonight. Atlanta jumped out to an early lead and Ben Sheets cruised late as the Braves notched their 7th straight win over the Phillies 6-1.

Atlanta grabbed the lead in the 3rd inning against Phillies starter Vance Worley, striking first with two outs. With one out, Michael Bourn drew a 7 pitch walk from Worley. Martin Prado followed with a single to move Bourn to second. After Jason Heyward made the second out on a deep fly ball, Freddie Freeman smoked a double to right. Bourn scored easily and Martin Prado narrowly skirted the tag of Brain Schneider to score as well, making it 2-0. Freeman advanced to third on the throw, and would score a few pitches later on a wild pitch to make it 3-0.

Atlanta tacked on a fourth run in 4th inning, when J-Soft (Paul Janish) led off with a double. A sacrifice bunt from Sheets moved him to third, and he scored on a Michael Bourn single.

Philly would collect their only run in the bottom of the fourth, when John Mayberry hit a 1-0 pitch from Sheets out to left-center.

Jason Heyward scored again for the Braves in the seventh, reaching on a single and scoring on a Brian McCann RBI single. Heyward wasn't done however, smashing a towering solo homer to right in the ninth inning for the final 6-1 margin.

Sheets did a great job of handling the Phillies, going 7.1 innings (a much needed break for the Braves' beleaguered bullpen) and only allowing 1 run on 7 hits. Sheets walked one and, somewhat surplussing, didn't strike out a single batter. Sheets got 9 groundball outs and 12 flyball outs, and probably got a bit lucky on the evening, as the Phillies had a number of balls hit hard right at a Braves' player. Regardless, Sheets did a great job hanging in, and keeping the Phillies at bay.

These two teams will play again tomorrow at 7:05 PM EST. Mike Minor will start for Atlanta and Cole Hamels will go for Philly in a battle of lefties.