Braves Report

Wins are nice. They’re especially nice when a solid effort is put out by both the offense and defense. Saturday night’s game was a perfect example of this, and increased the Braves’ win streak to three games.

Jurrjens got the nod in this game and was what we’ve come to expect from him. He put up a solid effort, going 6 innings while allowing 7 hits, 4 runs (3 earned), walking 2, and striking out 6. Not too bad at all. Carlyle followed him with two perfect innings and two K’s. He’s given me reason to have a lot of confidence in him, and is quickly becoming one of my favorite pitchers in the bullpen. Nunez closed out the 9th, allowing a hit and a walk, and striking out one.

While the pitching staff was pretty decent in the game, the offense was much better. Haren wasn’t fooling anyone, McCann, in particular. The All-Star catcher gave the Braves the lead early with a two-run shot in the first. He also had a bases-clearing single, which was caused by an error on opposing pitcher/former Brave Juan Cruz. The play was reminiscent of the Shane Victorino incident a few weeks ago, as the D’backs’ second baseman had to leave the game with a fractured wrist after McCann ran through his arm. After that, McCann stole third, tanking Mark Reynolds in the process. Truly a wrecking ball.

[Image: Yahoo! Sports]

The rest of the bats on the team did pretty well, too, I guess. WGC had two hits and two RBIs. Chipper had a single and a sac fly. KJ had a two-run double, although he got to wear the undesirable golden sombrero. Kotsay had three hits on the night, and Infante had two of his own. As a matter of fact, every player had a hit except for Blanco and Nunez. Good, strong effort.

Braves win big, 11 – 4.