• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers
• Game Tracker

Jurrjens tries to stay unbeaten against Phils

May 14, 2011 - 2:32 PM (Sports Network) - Atlanta's Jair Jurrjens aims to stay unbeaten on the season and win his second consecutive start against the Phillies as the teams battle at Turner Field this afternoon.

Jurrjens scattered eight hits and allowed just a run over 6 1/3 innings at Citizens Bank Park last Sunday night, a 5-2 Atlanta triumph. Unbeaten over his first five outings this season, the 25-year-old right-hander has pitched at least six innings in all of his starts. He's 4-3 with a 2.45 ERA in 10 lifetime starts against the Phillies.

Joe Blanton is scheduled to start for the Phillies in his second appearance coming off the disabled list. He was out with a right elbow injury before returning to pitch five innings in a victory at Florida Monday.

Blanton is 1-3 with a 5.67 ERA in nine games (8 starts) against the Braves.

On Friday, Ryan Howard hit a three-run homer and scored the go-ahead run on Raul Ibanez's single in the eighth inning, as the Phillies snuck by the Braves, 5-4, in the opener of the three-game series.

Shane Victorino had two hits and an RBI for the Phillies, winners in three of their last four.

"It was a battle of two good teams, they found a way to come back, we found a way to go ahead," Victorino said. "That's a game of execution."

Phillies starter Cole Hamels was touched for four runs on eight hits, while Cristhian Martinez hurled four perfect innings of relief behind Atlanta's Brandon Beachy, who exited early with a left oblique strain.

Martinez also had a two-run double but did not factor in the decision as a result of Cory Gearrin and Eric O'Flaherty (1-2) failing to hang on to a 4-3 lead.

Trailing with two down in the seventh, Jimmy Rollins doubled off Gearrin to end a string of 14 straight Phillies batters retired. O'Flaherty entered and appeared to catch Victorino looking at strike three, but home plate umpire David Rackley called the 0-2 pitch low, and Victorino took advantage of the prolonged at-bat with a run-scoring single up the middle.

Atlanta threatened to break the 4-4 tie in its turn by loading the bases against J.C. Romero, but Michael Stutes and Antonio Bastardo came in to strike out Dan Uggla and Freddie Freeman, respectively.

Bastardo (2-0) fanned Freeman after falling behind in the count 3-0 and was credited with the win when the Phillies took the lead in the eighth.

"It was one thing after another tonight, whether it was Beachy getting injured, the home plate umpire freezing up [on Victorino's at-bat] or our inability to get runs home with less than two outs. It was just one of those games," Chipper Jones said.

The Phillies hold a 4-3 edge in the series this year and have won nine of the last 13 matchups between these NL East foes.