Jerad Eickhoff and Phillies shut down Braves

The winning pattern for Phillies righthander Jerad Eickhoff this year has been simple: Pitch seven scoreless innings and watch the bullpen finish matters.

Eickhoff earned his second win of the season with seven shutout innings Sunday as the Phillies defeated the Braves, 5-0, winning one of their three games with Atlanta at Citizens Bank Park.

On April 13, Eickhoff also pitched seven scoreless innings and got the win in a 2-1 triumph over San Diego.

In between, things have not gone as smoothly. Between that earlier win and Sunday, Eickhoff was 0-5 with a 5.45 ERA in six games. He allowed seven home runs in that span.

"Eickhoff was really good," manager Pete Mackanin said. "That is the guy we are used to seeing."

On Sunday, Eickhoff allowed five hits, struck out three, and walked one. Eickhoff was efficient, having thrown 85 pitches, 57 for strikes.

"The biggest thing was my fastball command," Eickhoff said. "I had plans to do some other things, honestly, early on, but my command was so good that I kind of stuck with the fastball in and out, up and down."

Acquired in the Cole Hamels trade with Texas last season, the 25-year-old Eickhoff was 3-3 with a 2.65 ERA in eight starts for the Phillies in 2015.

"In a course of a season, you tend to do things or forget to do things you have always done, and I kind of drifted away from things I did last year," Eickhoff said. "And just getting back to that was a huge help."

The Phillies (25-19) finished their nine-game homestand with a 5-4 record and now hit the road for three games each against Detroit and the Chicago Cubs.

After scoring a total of one run in losses Friday and Saturday to the Braves, the Phillies doubled that total in the second inning.

Cameron Rupp opened the scoring in the second inning with his second homer of the season, an opposite-field blast to right off Braves righthander Casey Kelly, just recalled from triple-A Gwinnett. Rupp, who finished with a career-high three hits, said the opposite-field homer was a good sign for him.

"Usually that means I am seeing the ball well, and that is how I feel good at the plate," Rupp said.

Later in the inning, the Phillies made it 2-0 when Peter Bourjos' single up the middle knocked in Tyler Goeddel, who had tripled.

Eickhoff helped his cause with an RBI groundout in the fourth, driving home Freddy Galvis, who had tripled. He now has an RBI in four of his 16 career games.

Maikel Franco, who had four RBIs in the first eight games of the homestand, padded the lead with a two-run single in the sixth.

The Phillies had 13 hits, tying a season high, with Galvis, Franco, Bourjos, and leadoff man Odubel Herrera getting two each. Herrera reached base four times, improving his on-base percentage to .439.

Eickhoff was in trouble in the seventh when the Braves had runners on the corners, but he got pinch-hitter Kelly Johnson to hit into an inning-ending groundout to first.

Hector Neris and Jeanmar Gomez, who both last pitched on Wednesday, pitched the eighth and ninth innings, respectively.

Phillies pitches have combined to throw a major-league-leading seven shutouts, which tied their total for the 2015 season. Anyone looking for a reason for their surprising start can begin right there.

mnarducci@phillynews.com

@sjnard