Maybe Pink Bats Will Help?

The Braves are 1-4 against the Pirates so far this season after dropping the first two of the series this weekend.  On top of that, the 4-13 road record isn’t helping our standings in the division either.  Today, Mother’s Day, and in honor of the Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, teams throughout Major League Baseball will be swinging pink bats and maybe that’s just what the Braves need at this point in time to snap this road funk.  There’s no real other apparent way to fix the current struggles.

Jair Jurrjens (3-2) takes the mound toda for the Braves trying to improve his 1-2 road record.  On the other side of the mound for the Pirates will be Zach Duke, who has great stuff,  but has struggled thus far this season.  The key for the Braves today is to not continually lose base runners to double plays.  We need to get on the board and continue to get the offense going throughout the game.

It looks like we may have a bit of a rain delay today to start off the game and possibly thoughout the rest of the day, so we’ll see if we get it in or not.  Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there, hopefully the Braves can get us a win.

Chuck James Back Against Pittsburgh

A night after having their 6-game win streak snapped by the Pirates, the Braves are looking to Chuck James to get them back in the win column in the second game of this road trip.  James is all too familiar with the trips back and forth between Richmond and Atlanta, having started the season in Atlanta and amassing a 2-1 record before heading back to Richmond to continue to strengthen his injured shoulder.  He makes the start in place of the incapable-to-ever-be-healthy, Mike Hampton, so he has a real opportunity to shine tonight and help maintain a job in the bigs for awhile.  I personally would like to see Chuck find some consistency and stay in Atlanta for awhile.

The spot for James on the roster was made by placing Buddy Carlyle on the 15-day disabled list after the collision that knocked him out of the game in Atlanta on Thursday.  Buddy has a strained neck and bruised temple and hopefully we’ll see him back in action after a little bit of rest.  Road games have been the weak point of the Braves so far this season.  With a road record of 4-12, the Braves have the fewest road wins in the majors so far this season.  You can’t make it to the postseason if you can’t win on the road.

Taking the mound for the Pirates will be Tom Gorzelanny (2-3, 6.91).  Gorzelanny has a tendency to give up runs, but the real key is whether or not the Braves can get the bats going early in the game.  We’ve had problems with McLouth and Nady patrolling the Pirates outfield and stealing hits away from us.  Hopefully we can get that changed tonight and put another win up on the board.

Time To Win On The Road

The Braves closed a dominant homestand to start off the month of May, winning all 6 games to extend their best-in-league home record to 14-4.  However, the road games are where the Braves have struggled thus far this season, only amassing 4 wins in 15 tries.  The Braves put their 6-game winning streak on the line against the Pirates to open up a 4-game series in Pittsburgh.

Tom Glavine will be on the mound for the Braves tonight, looking for his first win of the season.  Glavine was 1-out short of getting a win against the Reds last week, but just couldn’t make it out of the inning.  Tonight, I look to see Glavine keep the Braves in the game while the offense tries to provide the needed run support.  Let’s get above .500 for the road trip, guys!

Reyes Hopes To Close Out Perfect Homestand

The Braves (17-15) will send Jo-Jo Reyes (1-0) to the mound looking for their second consecutive series sweep. Standing in their way will be the Padres (12-22) and former Brave Willfredo Ledezma (0-0). Both pitchers are short on starting experience this year, but they have both showed promising signs so far. Jo-Jo is coming off perhaps his best outing of his short Major League career last Saturday. Filling in for injured John Smoltz, Reyes limited the Reds to one run on four hits in 5 1/3 innings before running into some control issues in the 6th. Ledezma is making his first start for the Padres this afternoon, but he has pitched well out of the bullpen in long relief this year, posting a 1.96 ERA.

Also seeing action for the first time this year will be utility infielder Omar Infante. Infante will be activated before the game today, possibly taking the place of backup first baseman Brayan Pena. Pena has been struggling with some back pain and may be placed on the DL in order to make room for Infante. Infante has batted 4-for-11 (.386) during his minor league rehab starts, prompting the Braves to feel he is ready to join the Major League squad.

Hudson Looks To Keep Win Streak Alive

Coming off his complete game in his last outing, Tim Hudson looks to keep the strong defense going tonight against the Padres in the second game of the three-game series which ends tomorrow with an afternoon game.  With Smoltz out of the rotation, Hudson has assumed the definite role of ace of the staff and needs to put together a series of strong starts to back up that title.  The Braves’ 4-game winning streak is on the line tonight.

Tim has struggled at times this season, only getting into the 4th inning in some of his outings and showing a visible lack of speed and control that he normally possesses.  If he can pitch anything like he did in his last start however, the Braves should be good to go tonight.  Chipper Jones continues to have the hottest bat in the league and I’d love to see more HRs and RBI out of him throughout the rest of this series.  The Braves find themselves back above .500 now at 16-15 and are only 1.5 games out of the lead in the division.

Braves Open Series With Padres

Jair Jurrjens takes the mound tonight to continue to prove that he’s a great future player for the Braves as we open a three-game series against the Padres at Turner Field tonight.  Jurrjens has pitched into the sixth in all 6 of his starts thus far and hopefully that will help keep the bullpen rested.  Chris Young will be pitching for the Padres.

Glavine Tries For Sweep

I forgot to post a game thread today before leaving for the game so here’s a quick one. Glavine’s taking the mound today to try to seal the series sweep against the Reds. The Braves can get back to .500 with a win today.

Oh No Jo-Jo

Well, I figured it would happen sooner or later this season, but this was a little sooner than I thought.  Jo-Jo Reyes is back in Atlanta from Richmond.  Now I’ve made no attempts at hiding my feelings about Jo-Jo in the past, but I am not completely unreasonable.  I will give him three starts before completely passing judgment this time around, but if I don’t approve of at least two of those starts, I will be right back to my old school of thought on him.

True to his usual form, Jo-Jo has been unstoppable in Richmond thus far this season.  He has the second lowest ERA in the International League at 1.17.  Reyes has given up 3 runs in 23 innings across 5 starts.  Control is where he has lacked in the majors, throwing high numbers of walks, however, in Richmond, he has only walked 8 while striking out 25.  We’ll see how he looks in Atlanta this time around, but making it deep into the game has always been a weak point for him.

Jo-Jo makes his first big league start of the season tonight against the Cincinatti Reds.  It’ll be hard to match Tim Hudson’s complete game, three-hit shutout from last night, but I’d love to see him try.  The Braves look to extend their home record to 10-4 tonight.  We’ve been struggling on the road, so we need to get the wins where we can.  Let’s see if we can get another win streak started this evening.

Reds Coming To Town

There’s good news and bad news about the Cincinnati Reds coming to Atlanta for a weekend series against the Braves.

Good News: We’re back in Atlanta where we have an 8-4 record.  On the road, we have a paltry 4-11 record.
Bad News: We’re trying to figure out how to get the offense going to kick out of a 4 game losing streak.

Good News:  The Reds aren’t having a stellar season, with a 12-17 record.
Bad News:  We aren’t either, with our 12-15 record.

Good News:  Tim Hudson’s doing well every other start, so he’s due.
Bad News:  Edinson Volquez is pitching for the Reds and he’s on fire this season.

So that’s the meat of it.  The real question tonight is whether or not the Braves can figure out Volquez, who has only given up 20 hits in 29+ innings so far this season.  He’s carrying a 4-0 record and a 1.23 ERA only giving up 4 runs in his first 5 starts this season.  On top of that, he’s struck out 33.  Can the Braves find a way to crack through this hot streak.  Volquez has only gone 5 innings in his last three starts; maybe we can beat up on the bullpen.

Jurrjens Attempts To End Slide

The Braves are on a three-game losing streak and are looking to Jair Jurrjens to help end the road trip on a high note this afternoon against the Nationals.  Jurrjens (3-2, 3.45) has been the most consistent hurler in a rotation that has been severely plagued by injuries already this season.  There’s no reason to doubt why the Braves have high hopes for him in the future of the pitching staff.

The Braves have given the Nationals 4 of their 10 wins thus far this season.  As I said yesterday, they always seem to have our number no matter how each team is doing.  Hopefully today, with Chipper and Yunel settled back into the lineup, we can get the offense going and put some strong numbers on the board.

Nationals Park…..Again….

How is it that, in April, we are already making our third trip to Nationals Park and have only played 4 away games against them so far?  Either way, we’re back in Washington for a two-game series to close out the month against the Nationals.  The Braves are fighting a slew of injuries, but key performers Chipper Jones and Yunel Escobar are back in the lineup tonight, which is good to see for all of the fans.

Tom Glavine’s taking the mound for the Braves tonight in his first start off of the disabled list.  Tommy is admittedly rusty after not pitching with his strained hamstring over the past couple of weeks.  Hopefully he still looks good enough to tame Tim Redding tonight.  Redding has more wins personally than the rest of the Nationals’ starting rotation.

I’m hoping for a good two-game series for the Braves, but the Nationals always seem to have our number no matter how well we’re doing.  It’s time to break that streak and get back in the win column.

Smoltz Tries To Snag Series Win

After falling in another one-run loss yesterday to the Mets (12-11), the Braves (12-12) look to John Smoltz (3-1, 0.78) to capture the series win against the division rivals.  Smoltz is hot right now, striking out a total of 20 in his last two outings combined.   He also leads all of MLB with an average of 7.75 strikeouts per game. With the 3000K milestone behind him now, he can just focus on getting the wins.

The Braves are still lacking the offensive and defensive prowess of Yunel Escobar and Chipper Jones today, which was visibly a problem in yesterday’s game.  The lineup today as a result is a little strange, with Francouer moving up into the three-spot ahead of Teixeira.  We’ll see how this pans out compared to yesterday’s offense, which struggled to put runs together.

A win today would move the Braves to 4-1 against the Mets this season and back above .500 (and the Mets in the division standings).  Of all pitchers to have on the mound, Smoltz is the one you want to have to close out a rivalry series.  The Mets are bringing Nelson Figueroa(1-1, 4.05) to face Smoltz.  Figueroa has struggled at times this season, giving up 9 earned runs in 20 innings of work.