PHILADELPHIA _ The opposing team loaded the bases in consecutive innings without scoring Sunday, which wasn't too surprising if you've seen Julio Teheran face the Phillies before, particularly in Philadelphia.
And the streaking Braves' recently robust scoring output was on pause for most of the day Sunday _ again not surprising, if you consider how little run support Teheran has received this season. No worries, though.
The Braves got home runs from Matt Kemp and Freddie Freeman, and that was enough on a day when Teheran got big outs and the bullpen was strong in a 2-0 win at Citizens Bank Park. It was the sixth consecutive win for a Braves team that's determined to finish the season strong and avoid 100 losses.
The Braves (54-83) have won 10 of 14 games and have a 45-55 record since Brian Snitker took over as interim manager, including a 17-15 record since they added Matt Kemp to their lineup after a trade with the Padres.
They have back-to-back sweeps against the Padres and Phillies, now the Braves face the nemesis Nationals in a series that starts Monday afternoon in Washington.
Before Sunday, the Braves had scored the second-most runs in the National League over that span, and they've scored 40 runs during their six-game winning streak.
Teheran (5-9) allowed five hits and two walks with seven strikeouts in six scoreless innings, improving to 6-2 with a 1.39 ERA in 10 starts since the beginning of the 2014 season including 4-0 with a 1.00 ERA in five at Philadelphia.
The Phillies failed to score after loading the bases in the fifth and sixth innings, and the Braves failed to score after loading them in the sixth and seventh innings against Phillies starter Jake Thompson. But homers from Kemp in the second inning and Freeman in the eighth did the trick for the Braves.
Freeman is one homer away from his first 30-homer season _ his career high was 23 before 2016 _ and also got his 200th career double Sunday. He leads the National League with 72 extra-base hits.
Kemp needs two homers for his second 30-homer season and first since 2011, when he led the league in homers (39) and RBIs (126) and was second in the NL MVP balloting.
Teheran didn't allow a hit until the fourth inning and worked out of bases-loaded jams in each of his last two innings. He got Phillies home run and RBI leader Maikel Franco to ground out with bases loaded to end the fifth inning and escaped the sixth when Peter Bourjos lined out to well-positioned Nick Markakis in right field.
The Braves loaded the bases in the sixth on a single from Ender Inciarte (extending his hitting streak to 15 games) and consecutive one-out walks from Freeman and Kemp before Nick Markakis grounded into a double play.
They loaded them again in the seventh after a Jace Peterson single and Dansby Swanson walk with one out. One out later, Inciarte was walked intentionally to bring up hot-hitting Garcia, who grounded out to end the inning.
The Braves averaged 6.1 runs over their previous 13 games and scored six or more runs in every game during the winning streak before Sunday. If they were going to stop scoring runs in bunches, it figured they would do it in when Teheran was on the mound.
They have scored two runs or fewer while Teheran has been in the game in 17 of his 25 starts, including one or no runs while he was in 10. He had the lowest run support among major league starters at 3.18 runs per nine innings pitched before Sunday, while no other starter had support as low as 3.5.
Teheran's run support against the Phillies hasn't been much better throughout his career, at 3.3 runs per nine innings before Sunday. But he's allowed two earned runs or fewer in nine of 10 starts against the Phillies since the beginning of the 2014 season, including one or no earned runs in seven of those games.
