(Pic)- Kenshin Kawakami was responsible for four runs in 5 1/3 innings. (John Bazemore/AP)
ATLANTA (MLB.com)- Kenshin Kawakami has proven to be much more effective while pitching in games that drew much more attention. But courtesy of his latest struggles, he's provided reason to wonder if he and the rest of his Braves teammates will have future opportunities this year to participate in games that could be classified as meaningful.
Kawakami was far from being the sole contributor to the ugly struggles the Braves experienced while suffering a disheartening 12-5 loss to the Padres on Wednesday night. But he certainly provided the fuel that contributed to a six-run sixth inning that seemingly burned any legitimate hopes Atlanta possessed to experience this year's postseason.
"I don't think the pressure or anything gets to anybody this time of year, especially against that team," said left-handed reliever Eric O'Flaherty, who was on the mound while the Padres scored their final three sixth-inning runs. "If anything, we let up against them a little bit. Maybe we lost a little bit of focus."
While allowing four of the first five hitters he faced to reach safely, the usually dependable O'Flaherty said he didn't necessarily lose focus. But his choice to refer to a loss of focus as a potential reason the Braves have lost the first two games of this series to the last-place Padres, certainly seemed to agitate Chipper Jones, whose frustrations have grown with these costly setbacks and the reality that he has just one hit in his last 32 at-bats.
"We didn't lose any focus through six innings," Jones said. "Position players didn't lose any focus. We didn't lose any focus last night. We battled our tails off to get that game tied."
Still stinging from the demoralizing 12-inning, series-opening loss they suffered on Tuesday, the Braves found themselves crushed by this second-consecutive loss to a Padres team that had totaled 10 runs in its previous six games and coincidently strengthened its distinction of ranking last in the National League in both batting average and runs scored.
The Padres had totaled six runs in an inning just two previous times this year and the Braves had surrendered a total of six runs in just three of the previous 37 games they'd played since the All-Star break. But this marked the second time in a span of eight games that they'd surrendered six runs or more in an inning.
"Anybody can beat anybody," said Braves manager Bobby Cox, whose team is now a combined 9-7 against the Nationals and Padres, teams with records that register as two of the league's worst.
With this setback, the Braves fell eight games behind the Phillies in the National League East race and remained 5 1/2 games behind the front-running Rockies in the Wild Card race. From Jones' perspective, the desperation the club possesses won't be any greater when they return to play Thursday's series finale.
"It's always been [a sense of] desperation," Jones said. "We're playing every game like we're desperate to win. Sometimes when you play like that and you don't play relaxed, things sometimes snowball on you and you get more and more frustrated."
Provided an early lead courtesy of Brian McCann's three-run, first-inning homer off Tim Stauffer, the Braves gained confidence while Kawakami entered the sixth inning having retired 10 straight batters. But within a span of the next 10 pitches, he'd recorded just one out and surrendered four hits -- three doubles and a single.
"His pitch count was fine, but he lost a little bit of his stuff and command of the ball and got the ball to where they could hit it," said Cox, who sent the Japanese hurler to the mound having thrown just 76 pitches through five innings.
Kawakami, who had escaped the first inning unscathed after the Padres loaded the bases with nobody out, allowed Adrian Gonzalez to open the sixth with a double. The lone out he recorded during the inning came courtesy of Martin Prado's diving stop on Kevin Kouzmanoff's RBI groundout. One batter later, after Nick Hundley provided a game-tying RBI double, O'Flaherty entered to attempt to stop the bleeding.
"In the sixth inning, when I was facing the hitters for a third time, maybe I should have just thrown a ball to see if they would take it," said Kawakami, who surrendered first-pitch doubles to both Gonzalez and Will Venable. O'Flaherty, who had allowed just six of the previous 36 runners he'd inherited this year to score, promptly surrendered two consecutive singles. Pinch-hitter Luis Rodriguez's decisive single to center drew a throw to the plate that fell out of McCann's glove as he was making a sweeping tag. This miscue allowed an alert Tony Gwynn Jr. to also score on the play.
The Braves responded in the bottom of the sixth with three consecutive two-out singles registered by Yunel Escobar, Adam LaRoche and Ryan Church. But the resulting two-run deficit started to grow again when Kouzmanoff drilled a seventh-inning, two-run homer off Manny Acosta.
"It's a pretty helpless feeling," Jones said. "You play a game and you play hard and you don't show up in one inning and it just kind of snowballed from there."
Mark Bowman is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
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Thur Aug 27, 2009 6:48am EDT
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