Fill-In Fills Win Colum For Braves; Medlen Spearheads Win

ATLANTA 4, PHILADELPHIA 1

Making a spot start for the DL'ed Jair Jurrjens, long reliever Kris Medlen pitched 4 1/3 innings of effective work and the bullpen did the rest while the Braves' offense scratched across some rare road runs to carry the team to a 4-1 win over Joe Blanton.

The Phillies scored first with three singles in the second, with Brian Schneider coming around to score on Shane Victorino's two-out single. Medlen, who had allowed two singles in the first inning, but no runs, would allow four more over 2 1/3 innings where he stranded runners on second and third on the fourth inning. After allowing a one-out single to Placido Polanco in the fourth, Cox brought in Eric O'Flaherty to pitch to Ryan Howard. The lefty specialist got the slugger to ground into a 4-5-3 double play, with Chipper Jones playing shortstop in the shift.

Joe Blanton, in the meantime, was cruising. He didn't allow a base hit until Medlen collected his first major league base hit in the fifth, a liner that third baseman Greg Dobbs couldn't spear.

The sixth is where things started to change for Blanton and the Braves. Chipper led off the inning with an infield single to second base. Brian McCann followed with a base hit and Troy Glaus lined out to center field. Eric Hinske, making his first start since the last game of the Cardinals series, got the Braves a tie game with a right field done. Melky Cabrera singled him and McCann home to give the Braves a 3-1 lead. The Braves added a fourth run in the ninth when Glaus singled home Nate McLouth off of Philadelphia reliever Danys Baez.

The Braves bullpen, six pitchers in total, combined for 5 2/3 innings of hitless baseball. No pitcher allowed any hits. Craig Kimbrel, making his second major league appearance walked two batters in the sixth and Peter Moylan bailed him out with a double play. Moylan walked two batters in the seventh himself, but got two outs and Jonny Venters came on to retire Howard.

Takashi Saito pitched a perfect eighth, striking out two batter and Billy Wagner had a 1-2-3 inning, finishing the save with Shane Victorino's liner to left that Matt Diaz was able to grab with a diving catch.