Andruw Jones reaches a new low...

Davey here again, still on pinch-hitting duties...

The Braves just finished a very odd series with the Red Sox, one that included a rain-delay, a postponed game, 2 blow-outs and Andruw Jones striking out 5 times in the series finale.

Friday's game got rained out, which led to a day/night double header on Saturday in which noth teams took turns in clobbering each other. In game one, Dice-K predictably out-pitched Anthony Lerew as the Sox fisted the Braves 13-3.

In game two, the roles reversed as John Smoltz threw pure filth as Atlanta comfortably won 14-0. The offense strutted its testicles as they combined for 12 extra-basehits and put a smile one everyone's face.

Today it was supposed to be advantage Braves as Tim Hudson took the mound against Kason Gabbard (?), but Hudson got roughed up for four runs in the 1st inning and the Sox never looked back, winning 6-3. The Braves threatened a few times, but only to shoot themselves in the foot repeatedly and end any hope of a come back every time.

Andruw Jones had a chance to tie it up in the ninth, but Jonathan Papelbon made him look absolutely pathetic, getting him to strike out for a 5th time in the GAME. That's not something I'd recommend doing in your contract year....

So, now the Mets come to town, in a series that becomes extra important if the Braves want to stay close to the division lead.

--Davey

Braves lose opener to the Padres, 4-2

I mentioned last night, that the Atlanta Braves didn't play up to our capability against the San Diego Padres and honestly haven't for the past few weeks. It seems that we're in a win one-lose one loop right now, but we've been lucky enough to be winning series, usually two games to one. But let's get to this game, it was two totally different storylines for the starting pitchers, Chris Young was great(although he did have a bump in the 5th) and Chuck James was abysmal, lasting only 3 2/3 innings and walking four batters including the pitcher twice. I don't know what it is about Chris Young that makes him so good, he doesn't have overpowering stuff, his fastball only reaches up to 92(on a good night) the only thing that I can think of is his height and the downward movement he gets on his pitches from being 6'10". But what ever it is, he had it working last night, as he struck out eight Braves and only gave up two runs(both came in the 5th) on route to his fourth win on the season.

The trouble for James started in the second inning, when Pad's first baseman, Adrian Gonzalez, took him deep and gave San Diego a 1-0 lead in which they wouldn't surrender. James then went on to have an easy third inning where he struck out two batters but then came the fourth. He started it off by walking Gonzalez(not a bad move, seeing as what he did last time), but then he gave up a single to the next batter, Josh Bard. After a Khalil Greene fly out and a Mike Cameron single, the Padres scored their second run off of a Kevin Kouzmanoff sacrifice fly to right field. He was then pulled after walking the next batter, Chris Young, for the second time. In to replace him was Oscar Villarreal, who got us out of a tight spot. Although the Padres did strike again the next inning, after a single and a walk, "The Vulture" got Bard to ground into what should've been a double play to end the inning, but of course the walking worthlessness that is Chris Woodward threw the ball away allowing Brian Giles to score on the error.

Our only scoring came in the 5th inning, when Brian McCann walked and then followed behind him was Jeff Francoeur, who was hit in the elbow by a pitch and then both runners advanced on a Chris Young balk. Scott Thorman was able to capitalize on Young's mistakes with a groundout that scored McCann and then of course, just to make me look like an ass, Woodward came up and hit an RBI triple to score Francoeur and pull us within one run. Chad "Parontosaurus" Paronto came in to relieve Oscar, a move that we would regret as he failed to get out of the inning unscathed. First he started off great, striking out Cameron and then getting Kouzmanoff to groundout. But then Chris Young came up, and Parontosaurus decided to get some revenge on him for hitting Frenchy, which I liked because we never get pay back, but it was a move that would end up costing us another run. So Parontosaurus(I love saying that!) hit Young with two outs, then Marcus Giles came up and singled to center and then advanced to second on the throw by Andruw Jones to third, then the other Giles was walked intentionally in favor for Jose Cruz Jr, who was then walked and in came their fourth run.

Nothing really happened in the following innings except for really bad offense and really good pitching by both team's bullpens. I do have to say, Andruw Jones is struggling right now at the plate, he's trying to pull the ball everytime he goes up and it's effecting his train of thought at the plate right now. I am really thinking he may need a day off soon just to try and regain his composure. But not tonight, we're going to need every bit of offense we can get as we're having a rookie start for the first time. That rookie being Anthony Lerew.

WP: Chris Young(4-2)
LP: Chuck James(3-3)
SV: Trevor Hoffman(9)

HR: SD- Adrian Gonzalez(9)

Next game is tonight at 7:35 pm ET on Sports South. We have Anthony Lerew making his first start and he will be going against another player making his first start of the year, Justin Geramano.

Braves play like shit

The Atlanta Braves lost to the San Diego Padres tonight in the opening game of a 4-game series, 4-2. Chuck James went 3 2/3 innings before getting pulled, he actually found a way to walk Chris Young, the Pad's pitcher, twice. We all around played like shit, out defense had more holes in it than Julian Tavarez's face. Speaking of Tavarez, while searching for a pic of his hideous face, I found this gem on Deadspin, of him punching former D-Ray's centerfielder, Joey Gathright, in the face with an open palm. Wow, and I thought I fought like a girl.


EDIT: I'll recap this horrible game tomorrow, i'm not in the mood right now.

News Flash: Mark Redman still sucks

I could honestly finish up this post in very few words, "Mark Redman sucks and he cost the Braves yet another win" and be done with it, but I don't think I will, because a lot of huge story lines emerged from this game. The first major story line happened in the second inning, when Rod Barajas' backswing hit Brian McCann's catching hand and knocked off his glove. He tried to walk it off and return to the game, but he was forced to leave shortly thereafter because he couldn't hold onto Redman's pitch and let it get by him that led to the Phillies first run. Brian was taken to get x-rays on his hand, which were negative, he is currently listed as day-to-day with a bruised left ring finger, the same finger he injured against the Met's last week while trying to put down a bunt. And then again, more bad lucked struck in the top of the ninth inning when Braves back-up catcher, Brayan Pena was struck in the back of the head off another Phillie backswing, this time by rookie, Greg Dobbs.

"You need your fingers to catch a baseball," McCann said. "When one of them is giving you trouble, it's tough to do your job."

It isn't known right now if Brian McCann or Brayan Pena will be able to play tonight against the Freddy Garcia and the Phillies. If neither are able to catch then that could mean, Blue-Chip prospect, Jerrod Saltalamacchia, would be making his major league debut. Saltalamacchia, or "Salty" is currently hitting .309 with 6 homeruns, 7 doubles 13 RBI's and 13 walks in 22 games while in AA Mississippi. If Salty isn't brought up then it would most likely be Corky Miller who is in AAA Richmond or Craig Wilson, who is on our 25-man roster would get the start tonight.

For the Phillies starter, Cole Hamels, he started off really bad giving up three runs in the first inning, but he settled down very quickly. He ended up going 7.1 innings while giving up four runs, all of which were earned, he gave up nine hits, walked three batters and struck out six. Not his greatest performance, but it was enough to hold off the Braves and get the Phillies first win against the Braves.

There was some good parts of this game though, for instance Chipper Jones became the League Leader in homeruns by hitting two last night. His first was a two run homer in the 1st inning and then again in the eighth inning, both came off of Hamels. He passed up Phillies shortstop, Jimmy Rollins who has nine homers, Chipper now has ten. The other good news was our bullpen. They were forced to pitch over seven innings and only allowed two runs, Villarreal went 2.1 innings allowing one run and striking out four, Peter Moylan went three innings allowing one run, a homer to Barajas and striking out one and then Chad Paronto and Steve Colyer both went one inning apiece.

Mark Redman was about as effective as this guy in life. It was thought that his starts couldn't get any worse, I mean the guy was sporting a 10.16 ERA before the game, but somehow he found a way to suck even worse. First of all, he only went 1.2 innings, he gave up 4 runs, struck out one and walked three. And he injured one of our best players, McCann, if Brian wouldn't have had to stretch out his arm to catch the 69 MPH heat Redman was throwing, maybe he wouldn't have been injured. Hopefully he'll get busted for picking up and undercover cop, looking for a good time or something and never has to disgrace the Atlanta Braves uniform again by wearing it.

WP: Cole Hamels(3-1)
LP: *Mark Redman(0-4)
SV: Tom Gordon(5)

HR: ATL- Chipper Jones,2(10) PHI- Rod Barajas(2)

The next Braves game is tonight against the same Phillies, we have Chuck James going and they have Freddy Garcia pitching. The game starts at 7:35 PM ET and it's going to be on ESPN.

*= Fuck that guy

Braves lose in unbelievable fashion.

Usually when your pitcher is pitching amazing, setting career highs in strikeouts and seemingly unhitable, you win. Well not last night, the Atlanta Braves fell to the Florida Marlins, 4-3, despite a Cy-Young type performance from Tim Hudson. Hudson was dealing through eight innings with no troubles from the Marlins sluggers, his sinker was fantastic, he was hitting all of his spots and he didn't throw a ball above the knees of the batters from majority of the game. He had 12 strikeouts(a career high) and walked no one. But all that unraveled as soon as he stepped foot on the diamond in the ninth inning. He started off by giving up a single up the middle to Miguel Cabrera, the a single by Cody Ross to shortstop, that if Renteria hadn't had the range of a dead penguin, he would have gotten it or at least stop it and still have time to make a throw to first, then yet another single, this one by Aaron Boone to load the bases.

"We got dominated for absolutely two hours, and then win in the last 15 or 20 minutes." said Marlin's 1st baseman, Aaron Boone.

At that point, Bobby Cox had seen enough and decided to go to our closer, Bob Wickman. Wickman had only blown one save as a Brave. Wickman inherited a pretty bad situation, bases loaded with no outs, but I had faith in our "beer-chugging, meat-eating, Superstar". But like most things I believe in (I'll marry Jessica Alba, or at least a drunken mistake, beggars can't be choosers) but back to the game. On his first pitch, Miguel Olivo hit a 2-run double scoring both Cabrera and Ross. The Joe Borchard was intentionally walked and Josh Willingham hit for Henry Owens and he struck out after drawing a full count. Next up was the speedy centerfielder, Alfredo Amezaga, and Amezaga hit a blooper, maybe 80 feet, but it was deep enough to score Aaron Boone. So just like that, our 3-0 lead was depleted and we were no tied, with just one out. And Wickman's very next pitch ended the game, it was a wild pitch that got past Brian McCann and scored Miguel Olivo, who started the scoring parade with his double.

"All I had to do was get three outs before they scored three runs," Wickman said. "For me, it's the most disappointing loss of the season for us," Hudson said. "I felt as good as I have all year. But it stings that we didn't win the ballgame."

So we lost a game that appeared to be an easy win, Kelly Johnson led off the game with a homerun, then Chipper followed with his seventh of the season and then in the second inning Matt Diaz finally broke out of his slump with a solo homer and then take into count the amazing pitching by Hudson, we should've won this game, but alas we didn't and we are still a half of a game behind the hated Mets.

WP: Henry Owens(1-0)
LP: Bob Wickman(1-1)

HR: ATL- Kelly Johnson(5), Chipper Jones(7) and Matt Diaz(2)

The Braves next game is against the Colorado Rockies on Friday at 9:05 PM ET. The Braves have

Braves can't complete the comeback, fall to the Marlins

The Florida Marlin's ace, Dontrelle Willis, was in a hurry to finish the game because he was about to become a father for the first time. Willis wasn't completely on his game like he usually is, for obvious reasons, but he was still good enough to beat, at the time, the NL East leading Atlanta Braves. Willis went 6 2/3 innings, 3 K's, 3 BB's and gave up 5 runs(all earned), he also went 2-4 from the plate including a triple. Brave's starter, Kyle Davies completely fell apart in the 5th inning, first giving up a 3-run homer to Miguel Olivo and then a 2-run shot by Dan Uggla, who has now hit 3 in the past two games.

"Even in the heat of battle, they understand the situation," Willis said. "They were like, 'Man, you're a tough guy to be out here tonight.' I was like, 'Nah, just stupid.'"

This was probably Davies worst outings of the season, as he was barely able to even throw a strike. He finished with throwing 90 pitches, 46 of which were balls. He also was only able to go 4 innings, 3 K's, 6 BB's and he gave up 5 runs(all earned). The Braves were quickly down 8-2, they had had to go to the bullpen early, and we started Chris Woodward. So things were not looking too good. But Peter Moylan and Mike Gonzalez both had scoreless outings and we made a comeback, a comeback that wasn't quite enough. In the 6th inning, Jeff Francoeur knocked Willis out of the game when he took him deep for his 4th homerun of the season. Frenchy had a huge game by the way, he went 4-5 with 4 RBI's and that solo HR off of Willis.

"It's good to know we kept fighting back," Francoeur said. "If we had one more inning, I think we would have won the ballgame."

In the 7th inning, Andruw Jones' sacrifice fly scored Woodward and cut the lead to four and then the lead was cut to just three when Jeff Francoeur singled and scored Edgar Renteria. In the 9th inning, Chipper Jones went deep for the 6th time this season and followed behind him were back-to-back doubles by Andruw and Frenchy cut the lead to one. Brian McCann pinched hit next, he didn't play to rest his bruised hand, he's expected to play tonight though, but he struck out on a 3-2 count to young lefty, Renyel Pinto, who picked up his second career save. The Met's sadly won last night and regained the top spot in NL East, but no worries, they'll lose tonight against the Rockies, hopefully.

WP: Dontrelle Willis(4-1)
LP: Kyle Davies(0-1)
SV: Renyel Pinto(1)

HR: ATL- Chipper Jones(6), Jeff Francoeur(4) FLA- Miguel Olivo(1), Dan Uggla(4)