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For nine innings, Shelby Miller, Luis Avilan, Jason Grilli, and Jim Johnson held the Phillies to zero runs. Unfortunately, the Braves' offense was unable to figure out Cole Hamels and friends on the other side of things. The Braves' bullpen finally faltered in the tenth inning, and Philadelphia avoided a sweep by picking up a 4-0 victory today.
As you'd expect from a game that was 0-0 heading into the tenth inning, there wasn't much going on offensively in this game. As such, the two biggest highlights came from adventures on the basepaths. In the first inning, Cameron Maybin made an acrobatic move in order to avoid a tag at third base. Of course you know by now that he didn't score, but it was a great effort on Maybin's part.
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Meanwhile, Chris Johnson stole a base. Chris Johnson stole a base. It seriously happened! Again, it didn't lead to runs being scored, but this was definitely something of note. He really stole a base!
Shelby Miller went 6 1/3 innings today, struck out eight, and walked two. It wasn't a gem of a performance (he left after 106 pitches), but you can't really complain about giving up zero runs. Unfortunately, Cole Hamels was just as good over seven innings of work, which meant that we had a pretty intense pitcher's duel today. Luis Avilan and Jim Johnson held the Phillies at bay, with Johnson receiving huge help from Nick Makakis after this excellent defensive play.
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Jason Grilli kept the scoreless run going after the bottom of the ninth, and once the game went into extra innings, Fredi Gonzalez handed the ball to Nick Masset. Masset proceeded to give up three runs upon entering the game, and exited without recording an out. That performance probably contributed to both Masset and Dana Eveland getting DFA'd shortly after the game.
The Braves were unable to aswer the Phillies in the bottom of the 10th, and the game ended with a 4-0 score. Here's a sad stat as far as Shelby Miller is concerned:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The run support Miller has received while he's been the pitcher of record over his past 9 starts (2,0,1,3,1,0,0,0,0)</p>— Mark Bowman (@mlbbowman) <a href="https://twitter.com/mlbbowman/status/617781290683793408">July 5, 2015</a></blockquote>
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Yeah, that's not stellar. With that being said, there is one positive that we can take from today: The Braves still took two out of three games against the Phillies. Anything less would've been a mess, even if today's loss stings a bit.
<iframe src="http://www.fangraphs.com/graphframe.aspx?config=0&static=1077098&type=livewins&num=0&h=450&w=450&date=2015-07-05&team=Braves&dh=0" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" height="450" width = "450" style="border:1px solid black;"></iframe><br /><span style="font-size:9pt;">Source: <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/livewins.aspx?date=2015-07-05&team=Braves&dh=0&season=2015">FanGraphs</a></span>