Yes, that makes the alternative reading easier. But having looked at this too long my judgments are now too fuzzy to give you any specifics about likelihood or 'equal naturalness'.
My guess is that by omitting 'the' it just makes the phrase shorter, thereby decreasing the reading span between the beginning and the position of the scope element, so the garden path effect is less obvious. A similar effect would apply for example with "a group of two...", not just definite phrases.
