James loses no-hitter in the 7th, Braves win in blowout

After failing to get out of the fourth inning his last start, Chuck James was certainly looking to have a good outing, but i'm sure no one expected that he would flirt with a historical outing. Chuck James had a perfect game going into the sixth inning before he walked Jose Bautista and Jack Wilson to start the inning, but he was able to regroup by getting a double play and a strike out to keep his no-hitter and shutout intact.

The no-hitter was broken up later in the seventh, when Jason Bay singled to left field. James was able to finish out the seventh and even ended the inning with a strikeout. And of course as soon as he was taken out, Chad Paronto came in and fell apart. He led off the inning giving up a single, then a double to Wilson that scored Bautista later on Wilson scored on a sacrifice from Chris Duffy. Paronto was finally relieved by Peter Moylan after failing to get out of the inning, in fact he was only able to get one out, he gave up four hits, 2 runs in a 1/3 of an inning. Moylan came in and locked it down, getting LaRoche to ground into a double play and then he finished up the ninth inning, 1-2-3 including getting two strikeouts.

"I've been struggling a little bit and trying to get back to where I feel comfortable, and I've been putting a little extra stress on myself," James said. "I've kind of built me up a wall in the sixth inning and couldn't quite get through it. Today was a good confidence booster."

It was also a big offensive day for the Braves, I mentioned yesterday that it had been 8 games since we had homered, but we broke that yesterday as Andruw Jones and Jeff Francoeur both homered, and then again last night we had another two homers. Both homers came courtesy of Scott Thorman, it was his first career multi-homerun game. His first was a three-run shot in the second inning that gave us the lead and then again in the ninth this time it was a two-run shot. I am continuing to be impressed by recent call-up, Wilie Harris. He continued to play like a mad man, going 4-5 with two doubles and an RBI. He also is doing a great job on the bases, both with running the bases and stealing bases. It's been awhile since we've had a true base stealer, not since Rafael Furcal left us.

I, along with many on the Braves Journal, am in favor of Thorman starting everyday at first base, instead of Bobby Cox doing that stupid platooning all the time. But then again, Bobby Cox did just move into fourth place in All-Time major league wins with 2,195 wins. Cox surpassed Sparky Anderson on the career wins list and trails only Connie Mack, John McGraw and Tony La Russa. So I can't really talk, seeing as how the last thing I won was a stupid plastic telescope
that I got for sending in 200 box tops.

"He downplays everything, but for him that's awesome," Jeff Francoeur said. "We couldn't be more excited, you couldn't get it for a better guy. Look at the guys he's passed, Sparky Anderson -- it's hard sometimes to realize because he's your manager, but they're going to talk about him for a long time. There's no doubt he's a Hall of Fame manager."

WP: Chuck James(4-3)
LP: Tony Armas(0-3)

HR: ATL- Scott Thorman, 2(4,5)

The Braves will be going for the sweep today against the Pirates. We have rookie Anthony Lerew making his second start and they have a very good young pitcher starting, Ian Snell. It should be fun.