ATLANTA -- Johan Rojas looked up, but he never moved.
He watched the ball fall in front of him in the second inning of Tuesday night¡¯s 7-5 loss to the Braves at Truist Park. The ball bounced so close that he stuck out his glove to catch the rebound.
¡°I have to catch that ball,¡± Rojas said.
A weird, avoidable mistake cost the Phillies in their series opener against Atlanta. An inning after Edmundo Sosa robbed Marcell Ozuna of a home run in the first inning of his first start in the outfield in his professional career, Austin Riley hit a routine fly ball to left-center field with one out in the second.
It was hit so high that it had an expected batting average of just .010. Sosa or Rojas could have caught it.
¡°You! You! You!¡± Sosa shouted to Rojas in Spanish.
An outfielder is not supposed to say anything unless they are calling for the ball. But Sosa¡¯s words blended into the crowd noise, and Rojas thought Sosa was calling for it. Still, Rojas is in charge as the center fielder. He should have called off Sosa.
¡°That¡¯s my responsibility over there,¡± Rojas said. ¡°That ball is mine. I have to catch it. There¡¯s no excuse.¡±
Sosa started in left field because he entered the game batting .550 (11-for-20) and the Phillies wanted to load up the lineup with right-handed hitters against Braves left-hander Chris Sale. It meant Sosa started in left over Max Kepler, and Rojas started in center over Brandon Marsh.
Sosa¡¯s inexperience clearly came into play in the second as Riley reached second for the easiest double of his life.
But Rojas¡¯ mental lapse came into play, too.
¡°Rojas is a captain out there, and he's got to take charge,¡± Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. ¡°He's got priority. And so we talked to him about it, especially, you know, guy¡¯s playing left field for the first time in his life.¡±
Phillies ace Zack Wheeler struck out Bryan De La Cruz for the second out, which should have ended the inning. But Jarred Kelenic walked, and Sean Murphy crushed a three-run home run to left field to give the Braves a 3-2 lead.
The homer snapped Wheeler¡¯s 13-game streak of six or more innings pitched and two or fewer earned runs allowed. It ended his chances of becoming only the 12th pitcher since 1912 to have a 14-game streak.
¡°I was mad at myself for not bearing down because you take pride in that type of stuff,¡± Wheeler said. ¡°Not being able to bear down and get out of that inning unscathed, that made me mad. Things like that happen, you¡¯ve got to keep the focus. I¡¯ve been doing it for a while now and stuff like that¡¯s happened over my career. So you kind of take pride as a pitcher, all right, I¡¯m going to get us out of this. And it just didn¡¯t happen tonight.¡±
The Phillies scored three runs in the third inning to take a 4-3 lead. Kyle Schwarber¡¯s long home run against Sale in the fifth made it 5-3.
The ball left Schwarber¡¯s bat at 116.7 mph and traveled a projected 462 feet, according to Statcast. It was the fourth hardest-hit homer and 11th longest homer of his career. It was the longest homer Sale had allowed against anybody since Statcast began tracking in 2015.
Wheeler allowed two more runs in the sixth inning to tie the game. Orion Kerkering allowed a run in the seventh to give Atlanta the lead.
But everything went back to that play in the second inning.
It changed everything.
¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± Thomson said. ¡°I mean, maybe he doesn't give up any runs. I don't know. Maybe the same thing happens. They score. Because I thought Wheels wasn't quite as sharp as he normally is. So it's disappointing.¡±
Disappointing most of all for Sosa, who made an unbelievable catch in the first, and Rojas, who is on this team in part because the Phillies expect Gold Glove-caliber defense.
¡°At the end of the day, we missed that play and Wheels was having a great game,¡± Sosa said through the team¡¯s interpreter. ¡°This is the big leagues, we have to make that play all the time, it doesn't matter if it's the first play of the game, last play of the game, the inning or the score, we've got to execute all those plays.¡±