Braves can't deliver knockout on road

NEW YORK - Think of it as the purgatory of road trips.

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For the Atlanta Braves, going 4-6 on their 10-day trip - which concluded Sunday with a 4-1 thud of a loss to Tom Glavine and the Mets - wasn't enough to throw the NL East race into doubt. But it wasn't enough to stomp out the suitors on their heels, either.

Depending on Philadelphia's outcome Sunday night at Florida, the Phillies will trail by four or five games entering a pivotal three-game series that begins Tuesday at Turner Field.

The trip also increased the doubt about the team's ability to play on the road, something that would be handy for, say, Games 3 and 4 of the Division Series in Houston or San Diego.

Atlanta's now 37-40 away from home and 48-24 at Turner Field.

"If and when we get there, we're going to have to play a lot better on the road," second baseman Marcus Giles said. "If we don't, we're going to find ourselves watching the NLCS at home on our couches - again."

Scoring round by round, Atlanta took two from the Nationals to stun Washington enough to knock them from the East hunt. After that, though, they offered nothing in way of knockout punches - dropping three of four in Philly and two of three to a Mets team that had been left for the vultures after 15 losses in 18 games.

In essence, the 10 days felt like 1,000.

"It seemed long," manager Bobby Cox said, "because we lost too many games."

Glavine (11-13), the longtime Brave who had been frustrated by his old club time and time again, finally put things together. He gave up a run on six hits in his first complete game since May 2004.

"To do it against those guys, it's certainly a good confidence booster," said Glavine, previously 1-8 with a 7.07 ERA in 11 starts against Atlanta.

John Thomson (3-5) went step for step with Glavine for the first five innings. But, after gaining a 1-0 lead, the sixth was his rather abrupt undoing.

Thomson was certain he'd gotten strike two on leadoff hitter Jose Reyes. Instead, it was ball four. Thomson was hacked, and later admitted he didn't regain composure.

Not until after Victor Diaz doubled, Carlos Beltran did the same to score two runs and Cliff Floyd's homer ended the scoring.

"He's upset about it and before you know it, wham," Estrada said.