Alec Bohm hit a double and a home run on Friday. (Madeline Ressler/Phillies Nation)

PHILADELPHIA — The Phillies trailed by just one run when Luis Arraez hit a leadoff double against Chris Sale, Atlanta’s nasty left-handed ace, to start the bottom of the sixth inning. They had already put two runs on the former Cy Young winner, and the team was threatening again.

As promising as that was for Philadelphia, another missed opportunity awaited. The Phillies were 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position on Friday night at Citizens Bank Park. They had chances to take the lead in a crucial matchup between National League East opponents. But even the club’s biggest offensive contributor of the game was not safe from wishing he had done just a bit more.

“I definitely regret my third at-bat,” said Alec Bohm, who hit a double and a home run off Sale. He followed Arraez, then chopped a grounder to third base. Sale struck out Edmundo Sosa and Bryan De La Cruz to end the inning and strand the runner at second.

“He kind of used my aggressiveness against me,” Bohm said, “and made a perfect pitch and got me to hit something to the left side. Obviously, in hindsight, I’d like to get that runner over to third.”

Bohm was hardly the reason for the Phillies’ 5-2 loss in the opener of a four-game series against Atlanta, driving in both of the team’s runs. But his plate appearance in the sixth was an example of how thin the margins can be. The Phillies, who will play the division-leading Braves six more times this month, now trail by five games. These head-to-head matchups could be the difference between a first-round bye and a three-game postseason series.

“Anytime you’re facing a guy of that caliber,” Bohm said of Sale, “you really need to capitalize on every little opportunity we get. I feel like we did a good job of making him work and giving ourselves some scoring opportunities. He did what all the greats do and found his way out of it, made pitches. So sometimes you gotta take your cap. I think we did enough to get to him, but we didn’t get the big hit when we really needed it.”

It was not quite a postseason atmosphere in the stadium, with an announced crowd of 41,883 and some empty seats in the corners of the upper deck. But there was a bit of extra energy. The fans started impromptu “Let’s go, Phillies” chants earlier in the game. Their enthusiasm was gone by the time Orion Kerkering hung an 0-1 breaking ball to Mauricio Dubón for a two-run homer that put the Braves up three in the eighth.

“I mean, you feel it here when it’s a playoff game,” Phillies starter Cristopher Sánchez said through a club interpreter after allowing three runs in six innings, “so not really on that end. It was a really important game, as was every other game that we’ve had this year. Couldn’t win it tonight. But just going out tomorrow and trying to play the game and try to get a win for the team, I think that’s what we’re focusing on right now.”

While it probably won’t feel like quite a playoff game until the Phillies are actually in one, these contests right now could influence when and where they begin postseason competition. The Wild Card round starts on Sept. 29. The Phillies could host it, travel for it or skip it altogether if they could pass Atlanta and stick in the No. 2 spot in the National League.

Nothing is locked up yet. The Phillies (79-62) still have 21 games left in the regular season.

“I think every one of them is pressure now,” interim manager Don Mattingly said. “We’re not in the playoffs. We’re not guaranteed anything. So every game’s pressure at this point, pretty much the rest of the way. So again, they’re all the same at this point. It’s not a matter of who you’re playing. It’s: You need to win a game.”

The division is certainly within reach for the Phillies, even if Friday’s result made it slightly harder. But Philadelphia will need to prove it can hang with these Braves (84-57) in order to change the pecking order atop the NL East.

“Obviously not the way we wanted to start the series,” Bohm said. “We want to win every game, no matter who we’re playing. But obviously we understand it’s a big series, and if we come in here and have a really good series, we could shake some things up a little bit, put ourselves in a really good spot. But obviously it’s just flush tonight and show up ready to try to win a game tomorrow.”