Braves Report

It’s good to see the Braves win. Much better than seeing them lose. And that’s exactly what they did on Thursday night, earning Hudson his first win of the year.

Hudson started the game and struggled a little bit. He gave up 2 runs, 6 hits, and 5 walks in 5 and 2/3rds innings of work. Medlen relieved him and was perfect. O’Flaherty and Moylan pitched the next inning without incident. Then Saito and Wagner came in for an inning of work and both were perfect, recording 3 strikeouts between the two of them. Once again, the bullpen was phenomenal.

The offense was once again the Jason Heyward show, who had 2 doubles, driving in a pair of runs. Martin Prado homered for the first time this year. McCann tried to copy Heyward and doubled in a run. Yunel Escobar and Eric Hinske also both singled in a run. Good work.

A good showing all around.

Braves win the game and the series, 6-2.

Well, I don’t know what happened on Monday, but the Braves seem to have gotten it out of their system. At first, it seemed like we were going to see the same anemic offense that likes to rear its ugly head, but that just wasn’t the case tonight. The Braves scored when they needed to, and the pitching was phenomenal. Let’s go.

Tommy Hanson started this game and looked great. He went 6 innings, threw 100 pitches, allowed a run, 4 hits, 4 walks, and struck out 7. He was hitting 96 mph on the gun and made it look effortless. Moylan and Saito followed him, each allowing a hit in their inning of work. Wagner pitched the 9th and struck out 2. Overall, good job pitching staff. It’s nice to see this piece of the puzzle back in place.

At the beginning and end of this game, the offense struggled. They struck out 12 times in total, including 6 times in a row in the 8th and 9th innings. All seemed lost until the 6th inning, when Brian McCann doubled in a pair of runs. Jason Heyward singled in McCann after that for his 10th RBI of the year. In the 7th inning, I begged Glaus to do something.

He did.

He belted a three-run shot to the upper deck in left field, the same place where Andruw used to hit them, for his first home run as a Brave. He shut me up. Other than that, Prado had a double, but struck out 3 times. Chipper and Yunel also had singles. Keep up the good work.

Braves win, 6-1.

Next game, Thursday @ 6:35 PM EST on Sports South.

There’s some games that I don’t like to write about. There’s some games that I don’t even like to mention. This was one of them. Let’s try to figure out what happened in this train wreck.

Jurrjens started this game and, unsurprisingly, was tagged with the loss. His line was not great: 3 and 1/3 innings, 8 hits, 8 runs, 2 walks, and a strikeout. Jo-Jo came in to mop-up and also had a rough day: 3 and 1/3 innings, 10 hits, 9 runs, 3 walks, and 2 strikeouts. Chavez followed, making all 4 of his outs come from strikeouts. Good job, Chavez. Overall, a game that Jurrjens and Reyes would probably like to forget about.

As for the offense, it didn’t really matter what they did, but they were lacking once again. Troy Glaus singled in a run in the 6th. Jason Heyward was walked with the bases loaded for his 9th RBI of the year. Prado, Escobar, and McCann also all had singles. That was about it.

Forget about this one.

Falcons lose to the Chargers, 17-2.

Next game, Wednesday @ 10:05 PM EST on SPSO. Have faith.

Hanson (0 – 1, 3.38) vs. Clayton (0 – 1, 3.86).

For Game 5, I said that when it rains, it pours. Well, after the rain stopped in San Francisco yesterday, so did the Braves’ offense. They lost the rubber match against the Giants and their first series of the year. Not an impressive way to start the road trip, bringing their record down to .500 for the first time this season. Let’s see what happened.

Kawakami, a pitcher who was great last year in games against league-leading pitchers, was okay in his start on Sunday night. His line was 6 innings, 5 hits, 3 runs (2 earned), a walk, and a strikeout. This was good enough to get him the loss. Medlen followed, pitched an inning and a third, allowing 2 runs on 2 hits, while striking out 2. O’Flaherty pitched the last 2/3rds of an inning, giving up a run on a hit and recording a strikeout. Not their best performances of the season.

The Braves’ woes were compounded by the offense only being able to score 3 runs. These both came in the form of homers: a 2-run shot from McCann in the first, and a solo shot by Jason Heyward (his third) in the 9th. He has been a glimmer of hope on an offense that has struggled a bit in the past few games. An annoying fact is Tim Lincecum struck out 10 Braves. Let’s not have too many more like this.

Braves drop the series, 6-3.

Next game @ 6:35 PM EST.

When it rains, it pours. The Braves scored as many runs in this game as they have in their last 3. This was made possible by timely hitting, sloppy play by the Giants, and Jason Heyward. Let’s hope they can keep it up.

Derek Lowe started this game, presumably to let big-game winner Kawakami go on Sunday against last year’s Cy Young, Tim Lincecum. Lowe struggled a bit with control, as he went 6 innings, gave up 4 hits, a run, struck out 4, and walked a career-high 7. Not his best outing of the season. Following him was Moylan and Saito, each of whom pitched a scoreless inning. Jesse Chavez took over in the 9th instead of Wagner, because the game was out of hand by then, and gave up a run in an inning of work. Once again, a pretty solid effort from the bullpen.

The real story has to be the offense, who didn’t really do anything at first. They only scored their first run in the 6th inning, but then the gates came off after that. They racked up 10 hits, 2 each from Prado and Infante. Jason Heyward went 3-for-3 on the night with a walk and a solo shot that just cleared the left field fence. He also singled in a run. Troy Glaus got hit by a pitch with the bases loaded. Eric Hinske came on to pinch hit and had an RBI double. Infante also scored on a wild pitch in the 8th. All in all, a good showing.

Braves end their losing streak, 7-2.

Sunday’s game @ 4:05 PM EST on Fox Sports South, if it doesn’t rain.

Kawakami (0 – 0, -.–) vs. Lincecum (1 – 0, 0.00).