PHILADELPHIA _ After their hard-throwing rookie struck out three Phillies to escape a jam in the eighth inning and preserve a 4-4 tie, the Braves had the hot-hitting top of their order up to start the ninth. They did not disappoint.
The Braves got five consecutive hits to start a four-run ninth inning that sent them to an 8-4 series-opening win at Citizens Bank Park, their eighth win in 12 games and fourth in a row.
Ender Inciarte, Adonis Garcia, Freddie Freeman, Matt Kemp and Nick Markakis all got hits in the ninth before the Phillies got their first out in the inning, that on a Tyler Flowers sacrifice fly that pushed the lead to 8-4. Freeman drove in the go-ahead run with his second double of the game.
Kemp, who had a game-tying three-run homer in the fifth inning, added an RBI single in the fourth and Markakis followed him with a run-scoring double.
Those first five in the Braves order were a combined 12-for-22 with four extra-base hits, seven runs and seven RBIs. Freeman had two doubles and two walks and became the first Brave to collect 70 extra-base hits in a season since Chipper Jones had 75 in 2007. He leads the majors with 54 extra-base hits since the beginning of June.
The Braves have hit over .270 and scored 157 runs while going 15-15 in 30 games since Kemp joined their lineup, after hitting .252 and totaling 110 runs in their last 30 games without him (11-19).
The Phillies got consecutive singles against reliever Cabrera to start the eighth with the score 4-4, but the power-armed rookie _ he leads the majors with an average fastball velocity of 100 mph _ struck out Aaron Altherr on a 103-mph heater, struck out Darin Ruf trying to check his swing on a slider, and struck out Freddy Galvis looking at a 99-mph third strike.
Braves rookie Joel De La Cruz, perhaps near the end of his rope as a starter this season, was 0-7 overall and 0-3 with a 6.52 ERA in his past four starts before Friday, when things were rough again in the early going.
In the first inning, he gave up a leadoff walk and two-out RBI double to Ryan Howard, and the Phillies started their second inning with a Darin Ruff leadoff single, Freddie Galvis double and A.J. Ellis three-run homer. Just like that, the Braves trailed by four runs before De La Cruz recorded his fourth out.
But after the Ellis homer, De La Cruz retired 12 of the last 15 batters he faced and allow only one more runner to reach second base. He lasted five innings and was charged with six hits, four runs (all earned) and two walks with five strikeouts.
Kemp's three-run homer to center field was his 27th of the season and fourth as a Brave, and made it four consecutive games in which the Braves scored at least four runs in one inning. He has 12 extra-base hits and 22 RBIs in 30 games for the Braves, batting cleanup between Freeman and Markakis and giving the Braves another power-hitting presence that his teammates and coaches say lengthens their lineup significantly.
The Braves trailed 4-0 when Gordon Beckham led off fifth inning with a double, advanced on a De La Cruz bunt and scored on an Inciarte single that extended his hitting streak to 13 games. One out and a Freeman walk later, Kemp stepped into the box, got behind in the country 0-2 swinging at two change-ups, then took a change-up for a ball and fouled off yet another change-up before homering on a hanging curveball.
Inciarte had three hits to give him 18 multi-hit outings in his past 32 games, a torrid stretch in which he's batted .394 with 12 extra-base hits.
Hellickson was 4-1 with a 3.19 ERA in his past seven starts before Friday, but he's now allowed nine runs in 10 innings over his past two starts after giving up three runs or fewer in each of the previous six. When he faced the Braves July 6 at Citizens Bank Park, he allowed just four hits and two runs (one earned) in six innings.
