You can't win them all unless you win your first.
Not that the Atlanta Braves ever were going to win all 162 games they're scheduled to play this season. In the opinion of most experts, they were going to have to play close to their level of perfection to possibly capture 75 or so of those.
But they did enter the top of Monday afternoon's ninth inning at packed Turner Field with a grand chance to send their fans home happy for at least one outing this season.
They led their season opener against the Washington Nationals by a 3-2 score at that point, having clubbed two homers against the Nats' nasty No. 1 starter Max Scherzer and coaxed home a go-ahead run in the eighth by drawing a couple of key walks, including one from the two-time Brave and Atlanta native Jeff Francoeur.
So everything was in place for Atlanta to rise to the top of the National League East for at least one day.
Then they gave up a tying run in the ninth. And another in the 10th thanks to a throwing error by second baseman Gordon Beckham. And just like that, all that good work to cleverly craft a 3-2 lead lamentably became a 4-3 loss heading into today's odd off day.
"We said before the game," Voice of the Braves Chip Caray noted afterward, "that the Braves needed to make the routine plays this season to win close games, much less any game this year."
Instead, an official error by Beckham in the 10th following an unofficial blunder by catcher A.J. Pierzynski in the ninth - he failed to hold onto center fielder Ender Inciarte's accurate throw to the plate for what would have been the game's final out - turned victory into defeat.
Not that the Braves seemed dejected. After all, there still are 161 games to play and this first one almost produced a victory against one of the most talented pitchers in the game in Scherzer and one of the most dangerous lineups in general.
In one of those comments that long has marked the franchise's unfailing one-game-at-a-time attitude, Francoeur - who was saluted by the largest and longest ovation of the game when he entered the contest as a pinch hitter in the eighth - said of this defeat, "It wasn't the ending we wanted. But we'll get one Wednesday and split these two games."
For those who wonder why the organization brought back the former Atlanta prep great and Braves starter in the twilight of his career, that attitude in a clubhouse full of strangers might be one of them.
This quote about his one-out walk in what should have been the game-winning eighth is also worth remembering, if only to better understand Francoeur's potential worth on the field. With a crowd of 48,282 rising as one to celebrate his return to the Big Peach, "Frenchy" calmly drew a walk, then noted afterward of his first Braves at-bat in seven years: "Different approach now than then. Was able to back off and slow the bat down."
No one yet knows if this season will move slow or fast. Game one starter Julio Teheran, despite surrendering two homers, certainly pitched well enough to win. The bullpen mostly did its job, especially Arodys Vizcaino, who was brilliant in the eighth.
And before anyone questions manager Fredi Gonzalez about throwing Vizcaino in the eighth instead of the ninth - when Jason Grilli went to the mound - Vizcaino was facing the heart of the Nats' order while Grilli drew the sixth, seventh and eighth hitters.
The strategy was sound. The results just didn't deliver the win it deserved.
Still, the Braves didn't win. They lost because of their own mistakes. They lost despite a Freddie Freeman home run and a solid bullpen. And when wins figure to be as tough to come by as most predict for the Braves, you wonder if this lost victory can be so easily forgotten as Frenchy Francoeur predicts.
"We played a great game," Gonzalez said in what sounded eerily like former manager Bobby Cox, the unshakable Mr. Positive who threw out Monday's first pitch.
"Just too bad we didn't get a chance to celebrate and shake hands afterward."
Especially since those moments could very well be so few and far between in the weeks and months to come.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.