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Braves hand Phillies another loss on the road

ATLANTA - The worst of Jerome Williams' 15 starts in red pinstripes created a hole out of which the Phillies could not dig. On a night when their offense managed 12 hits, four for extra bases, the game's result still mirrored much of the previous week's.

ATLANTA - The worst of Jerome Williams' 15 starts in red pinstripes created a hole out of which the Phillies could not dig. On a night when their offense managed 12 hits, four for extra bases, the game's result still mirrored much of the previous week's.

A 7-5 loss to the Atlanta Braves on Wednesday capped the Phillies' first 10-game road trip of the season, a three-city jaunt that produced only three wins. They have yet to win a road series this season and have lost each of their last nine dating to September.

Williams lasted only 41/3 innings in front of another sparse Turner Field crowd. The journeyman righthander allowed a season-high six runs and eight hits. He threw only 72 pitches before manager Ryne Sandberg pulled him in favor of lefthanded reliever Jake Diekman.

Andrelton Simmons proved a thorn in Williams' side. The Braves' 25-year-old shortstop homered in the first inning, doubled and scored in the fourth, and smacked a single in the fifth that chased Williams from the game.

"Obviously it wasn't what I wanted tonight," Williams said. "The second batter of the game [hit a] homer. I kind of settled down after that and then the fifth inning just unraveled a little bit for me."

The defeat wasted a career-best three doubles from Ben Revere and Ryan Howard's first three-hit game of the season. Howard's sixth-inning homer, his team-leading fifth of the year, marked the 50th of his career against the Braves over 161 games. Since the Braves moved to Atlanta in 1966, only Johnny Bench (52) has more homers against them.

Revere became the first Phillie with three doubles in a game since Michael Young two summers ago. He's the fourth player in baseball to accomplish the feat this season.

"He's peppering the ball all over the field," Sandberg said of Revere, who is heating up after a slow start to the season. "He's added a little pop in his bat with the doubles. But I think he's just squaring the ball up much better and finding holes and just a lot of confidence."

Since joining the Phillies last August, Williams, 33, had allowed three of fewer runs in 10 of his 14 outings. His ERA in that span was 3.24. He lasted a season-high 62/3 innings in a start against the Braves 10 days earlier, when a four-run fifth made the difference. He wasn't exactly bailed out by the bullpen, either.

"I was just not locating the ball down," he said. "I always stress that, and I'm kind of hardheaded about it. I've just got to get back down in the zone like how I was in the second or third."

The Phillies trailed by five runs after Diekman allowed a pair of inherited runners to score in the fifth. They shaved their deficit to two with a three-run sixth kick-started by Howard's opposite-field home run. Jeff Francoeur followed with a pinch-hit RBI single and Revere drove in a run with his third double in six innings.

The Braves tacked on one run in the bottom of the sixth. Three innings later their closer, Jason Grilli, entered for the save attempt. Darin Ruf lined a two-out single to right field, scoring Revere and keeping the game alive, but Odubel Herrera struck out looking to end it.

The trip began with a win against a St. Louis Cardinals club that now boasts baseball's best record. It ended with three more lost series.

@jakemkaplan