No, everytime there is a 1 run game on the road the braves have lost 23 in a row.
http://atlanta.braves.mlb.com/news/...tent_id=3027796&vkey=recap&fext=.jsp&c_id=atl
TORONTO -- Because this was a road series more than it was a road trip, there was hope that the Braves might finally return to Atlanta in better shape than when they left.
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</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>By the time they'd concluded their three-game series against the Blue Jays on Sunday afternoon, this proved to be nothing more than wishful thinking. Even with Mark Teixeira prolonging his recent offensive tear, the Braves learned how miserable it can be to spend an entire weekend without both Chipper Jones and Yunel Escobar in their lineup.
Either might have helped Jo-Jo Reyes avoid the cruelty of the 1-0 loss to the A.J. Burnett and the Blue Jays in the series finale at Rogers Centre.
"Burnett was tough," said Braves manager Bobby Cox, whose team has now lost each of its past 23 road games that have been decided by one run. "I don't care who was in the lineup today. He was tough."
While pitching around Teixeira's hot bat and winning both of his key battles against Brian McCann, Burnett recorded a season-high 11 strikeouts and tossed seven scoreless innings against the Braves, who have won just 12 of their first 41 road games this season
"Burnett always has had some of the best stuff in the league," said Cox, who watched the right-hander develop in the Marlins' organization. "When he's on, he's hard to hit and he's going to get his strikeouts. But Reyes pitched great. He was ahead of the hitters, hit his spots and he wasn't hit very hard at all."
Burnett's effort was barely good enough to beat Reyes, who allowed just one run and six hits in seven innings. The lone run surrendered by the 23-year-old southpaw came with one out in the sixth inning, when Alex Rios snuck a sharp grounder under the glove of third baseman Ruben Gotay for an RBI double.
"It was a ground ball, but it was well-hit or well-placed, I guess you could say," Reyes said. "You can't expect Gotay to make that play nine out of 10 times."
Nor could the Braves have expected to win more than once during this three-game series in which they were forced to start Gotay at third base and Brent Lillibridge at short.
It looks like the Braves are going to be without Jones for a portion of the next two weeks, as his right quadriceps muscle might force him to the disabled list. But Escobar could be back in the lineup for Tuesday's series opener against the Phillies.
"If you take Chipper out of any lineup, it's going to be different," McCann said of the third baseman, who leads the Majors with a .394 batting average. "We need him getting healthy for this push. We don't want him coming out here at 80 percent and then stretching it out and then having to miss two months."
After watching Teixeira homer for the sixth time in six games on Saturday, Toronto opted to pitch him carefully, walking him three times during Sunday's series finale. Considering he'd driven in five of the nine runs Atlanta had tallied in the first two games of the series, it was a logical approach.
Teixeira and Kelly Johnson drew consecutive walks to begin the fourth inning, but they were stranded when McCann flew out to left and Greg Norton grounded into a double play.
McCann, who entered the game hitting .295 with runners in scoring position, also looked at strike three to end the top of the sixth with runners on first and second base. Then to cap his day, the All-Star catcher followed an eighth-inning intentional walk to Teixeira by once again stranding runners at first and second with an inning-ending groundout.
"We had opportunities, and it seemed like every time they came around, I was the guy at the plate," McCann said. "Obviously I didn't come through one time."
This kind of ending has become all-too familiar for the Braves, who are just 4-21 in one-run games this season. But if nothing else, they walked away from this series finale feeling even better about Reyes, who showed his maturity by bouncing back so quickly after lasting just 2 1/3 innings against the Brewers last week.
Reyes' lone mistake against Toronto came after he decided to test Rios with an inside slider. Normally, he's thrown mostly back-door sliders against right-handed hitters, catching the outside portion of the plate. But he told McCann before the inning that he wanted to provide a different look.
"He's pitched a lot of great ballgames," Cox said of Reyes. "We just couldn't get him the runs today."
Despite posting a 3.22 ERA in his past seven starts, Reyes is just 1-4 during that span. "He's making a name for himself," McCann said. "He had a little hiccup his last start. But if he can keep doing this for the rest of his starts, he's going to be huge for this team."
