Morton’s Chipper, Taking On Phillies

Charlie Morton takes the mound tonight against the Phillies - hoping the Braves offense can back him this time out.  And, unexpectedly, Chipper Jones may be in the lineup doing his part. That’ll help Morton feel happier - or even Chipper - if you will, about this game.

Chipper ran some sprints today and noticed significant improvement in his right quad.  He told Bobby Cox about an hour ago he was ready to be in the lineup for the game tonight.  The final decision will be made after batting practice, but Chipper, who was expected to go on the DL today, normally knows his body pretty well.  I’d expect to see him doing his part.  Hopefully he’s kept up his hot swing while he’s been unable to run, because I can’t wait to see him in front of Mark Teixeira, who has been absolutely on fire recently.  Oh, and we get Mark Kotsay back from the DL tonight.  And if that’s not good enough, we’ll get Yunel Escobar back in the lineup tomorrow.  We’ll see an improvement in offense with those three.

Morton needs a win.  He’s had three starts and is 1-1 with a 4.24 ERA, but he’s pitched very well in all of those starts - not giving up more than 3 earned runs.  He’s due tonight and if the guys can deliver offensively, we should see another W for the Bravos.

Time to make a run to the top of the division, gentlemen.  Go get ‘em!

- Colin

Chipper Likely to DL

Chipper’s not getting better fast enough.  Bobby said yesterday “I don’t think Chipper’s close to playing.”

So he’s likely headed to the DL, at the very least when they bring Kotsay back tomorrow as he completes his rehab assignment.  That lingering quad injury will keep Chipper out of the crucial series this week against the Phillies.  If it continues to bother him, you can be sure he won’t risk hurting it in the All-Star game.

Chipper said in the AJC today “Make no bones about it, I would love to play in [the All-Star game], but if my body doesn’t allow me, that’s just a tough break.”

Chipper also admitted that he should likely have been on the DL before now.  “We probably should have DL’d me right when it happened. I knew it was worse than the previous time it happened. But the competitive side of me wanted to keep playing. I’ve always been a quick healer, and I thought I’d be able to play in five or six days.”

When you can’t run it doesn’t matter how well you can hit.  We’ll pray Chipper heals quickly and that Tex can carry the team while he’s out.  Get well soon, Chip.

Braves Beat Rox, Mets Fire Willie

The Braves came out strong behind Jair Jurrjens and 7 2/3rds innings of one-run ball to beat the Rockies last night 7-1.  Chipper went 2-4 and started the scoring in the fifth with two RBIs.   Jurrjens’ extra five days of rest due to his sprained ankle seem to be paying immediate dividends - “I got my changeup back,” Jurrjens said.  The extra rest helped a blister heal.

Up in Queens, the Queens have fired longtime sucky manager Willie Randolph.  I don’t mean that in he was their manager for long, but that he has sucked for most of his time as Mets manager.

Jerry Manuel will replace him as interim head coach.  The Mets also cleaned out some of their other manager positions.  For more info, check out our buddy Andrew’s site over at TheRopolitans.

The Braves are finally up to 10 road wins, taking three out of the last four on the road.  Do you think they’ve turned a corner?  With the starting pitching looking great its last time around, will they continue their improvement?

And as Mike Hampton heads down to the Gulf Coast League for a couple rehab starts, will he ever pitch in Atlanta this season?

Chipper To Miss A Few Games

Chipper Jones will miss at least his next three starts with a slight tear in his right quadriceps muscle.  The strain occurred in the 7th inning while Chipper was trying to beat out a ground ball to first base.  He bent over in pain after the run, but decided to stay in the game.

This is a little worrisome to me to say the least.  Our team doesn’t do well without Chipper in the lineup this season and our struggles to produce runs lately cause even more concern.  We’ll see how the team can compete today, but the real key is to get Chipper healthy as quickly as possible.  I guarantee we will really be missing him in the lineup for the next few days.

400 HRs for Chipper

It was a great night for Chipper Jones tonight.  4-5, HR, RBI, SB.  What’s there to complain about there?  He raised his average back up to .418 at the end of the evening as well.  Chipper’s 6th inning blast to deep right field was the 400th of his career.  Congrats on a great accomplishment, Chipper!

Oh yeah, and the Braves won 7-5.

Braves News Bits

There are a lot of little stories going on about the Braves recently, but nothing that really warrants a full article, so I’m just going to throw them together and make an article out of it:

Smoltz, Soriano, Gonzalez - Bobby Cox believes that all three of these guys could be off the disabled list and in the bullpen in the next two weeks.  Smoltz has been rather quiet about the condition of his shoulder.  Soriano has made the first of two planned rehab assignments in AA Mississippi.  Gonzalez has been throwing in extended spring training and is expected to be evaluated in Atlanta next week in preparation for rehab assignments.  These three will change the face of our bullpen a lot; the question at this point is, who will be moved to make room on the roster?

Yunel Escobar - Yunel missed last night’s game against the Mets after a collision with Ryan Church on the last out of the second game of Tuesday’s doubleheader.  Escobar still has some pain and swelling below his knee and is questionable for tonight’s game.  He’s currently planning on being back for the wrap-around series against the Diamondbacks this weekend.

Chipper Jones - After taking a pitch of the shin in last night’s game, Chipper is experiencing a bit of soreness but says that it feels a lot better today than it did as he left the game yesterday, hardly able to put any weight on it.  He’s questionable tonight, but we need him in the game.  We all know how the offense performs when he’s out of the lineup.  Losing Chipper and Escobar against the Mets seems common this season.

Turner Field Death - As we talked about through the night, Justin Hayes has died from the injuries suffered in his 150-foot fall from the stairwell in Turner Field last night.  As part of the Braves community, we are saddened by this news and offer our condolences to his family and friends.  This is the first non-medical death at Turner Field since it was constructed for the 1996 Olympic Games.

Hank Aaron Is Awesome -  Just to reiterate the fact that I think Hank Aaron is one of the greatest baseball players ever, I’ve decided to close this article with a recent Aaron quote.  “But seriously, I think Bonds has done wonderfully. I think he had a marvelous career. I had it for a long time. Seven-fifty-five was there for a long time.” Hank went on to say what we all already know is true, “I still consider myself the home-run king”.

Chipper Out Tonight

We’re in Philadelphia again tonight for the final game of the series.  Tonight I’d like to see something different - something like finishing as strong as we start.  The biggest obstacle we’ll have is not having Chipper Jones on the field. He’s out for the night with a sore groin which started bothering him during his last at-bat last night.  At this point in the season, only two other batters in history have had an average of over .400. Chipper will be sorely missed in this clutch series finale.

Games one and two of the series have proven to be somewhat of a disappointment. After another one-run loss on Monday after a strong 3-0 start, the Braves barely held on last night after a huge lead as the Phillies rallied at the end of the game.   This is not something that needs to continue.  If we can play .500 ball on the road and play at home like we have been, the Braves will start to look a lot like a 1995 team. Certainly after a strong start like last night, morale couldn’t have been low. Maybe we settled in and got a bit too comfortable.

Tonight, Chuck James (2-2, 7.58) faces Cole Hamels (4-3, 3.36). James pitched six innings on Saturday in Pittsburgh, but allowed five earned runs on five hits to gain his second loss. His second win was against the Marlins in late April where he allowed two runs in five innings until a two run home run.  Whereas this is not a very impressive statistic, James has a lot to prove as he was called up originally to replace Glavine while he was on the disabled list.

Watch for strikeouts from Hamel tonight.  He struck out 11 batters in Milwaukee in late April, and it was his 8th double-digit strikeout night. He also has walked three or fewer batters in his last eight starts. The Braves will need to be sure to keep their bats alive.

The Braves will be back in Atlanta tomorrow night facing the A’s.

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.

Home Dominance: Reds Swept

The Braves are 11-4 at home so far this season (now if only we weren’t 4-11 on the road) and it was a much needed 3-game sweep of the Reds after we had dropped 4 straight on the road.  We’ve been pretty lax about getting game recaps up lately, so I’m going to do my best to give a quick recap of the Reds series:

Game 1 - Friday - Braves 2, Reds 0
Friday night’s game was an absolute gem for Tim Hudson.  We’ve been a bit worried about Hud lately with his visible lack of speed and inability to get deep into a game.  But Friday night, he looked like the Tim Hudson we expect to see on the mound.  He threw a complete game, 3-hit shutout of the Reds, while striking out 10 and not issuing a walk.  The offense didn’t really provide much support outside of a two-run home run for Brian McCann in the bottom of the 4th, but who needs it when you have a pitching outing like that.  Hudson only seems to be doing well in every other start however, so we’ll see how he looks next time out.

Game 2 - Saturday - Braves 9, Reds 1
I’m not going to lie.  I was worried going into the game on Saturday with Jo-Jo Reyes making his first big league start for the Braves this season.  Jo-Jo has tended to pitch amazingly well in the minors and then not been up to snuff when he made his appearances in the bigs.  For 5 innings on Saturday, however, he looked decent.  His control fell apart in the top of the 6th and Bobby Cox wisely got him out of the game.  This was definitely the right decision for the team as a whole and for Jo-Jo’s confidence in his ability to pitch.  Through 5 1/3 innings, Reyes issued 4 hits and only gave up 1 run while striking out 5.  He gave up three walks as well, all in the top of the 6th.  The offense helped seal up the win for Jo-Jo with a 6-run bottom of the 7th.  The Braves had 7 doubles on the day.

Game 3 - Sunday - Braves 14, Reds 7
Yesterday’s game can best be described as a slug-fest with the teams putting up a combined 30 hits and 21 runs.  Tom Glavine didn’t have his best stuff for the game, going only 4 2/3 innings and giving up 6 runs.  Royce Ring came in to finish off the 5th inning, and, by throwing one pitch, gained the win on the day.  The offense looked stellar yesterday however, bolstered by 3 doubles from Kelly Johnson (which gave him 5 doubles in two games) and home runs from Chipper Jones and Mark Kotsay.  Chipper had a total of 5 RBIs on the day.

Overall, I know the Reds aren’t really a great team in the league this season, but the sweep was just what the Braves needed at this point.  They’re back to .500 baseball again with a record of 15-15 and have an off-day today before a three-game set at home against the Padres.

Braves Injury Updates

It has been a tough season on the injury-front for the Braves already this season, especially when we take a look at our pitching staff.  I figured we could use today’s off-day to do a quick review of where we stand with a lot of the injuries that are plaguing the team on both sides of the ball thus far.  We need most (and preferably all) of these guys healthy if we want to have a hope at returning to the playoffs this season:

Chipper Jones - Chipper missed the last two games with spasms in his lower back.  This is a tricky injury that could be gone in a minute or stick around for a couple of weeks.  Chipper’s tough though and if there’s any chance of him playing, he’s not going to miss a game.  He’s still having some trouble rotating his body though, so we may see him miss another game or two.  He should hopefully be back by the time the Braves return to Turner Field this weekend.

Yunel Escobar - Yunel cracked his fingernail trying to lay down a bunt in Friday night’s game and missed the games on Saturday and Sunday as a result.  Bobby Cox said there’s an outside chance that we’ll see Yunel play Tuesday night.  The swelling in his finger is going down but he’s still unable to really grip a bat and I’m sure he’ll be severely crippled by the injury in the field as well.  I look for him to be back in the lineup by the time the Braves head back to Atlanta as well.

John Smoltz - Smoltz has been bothered off and on by soreness between his neck and shoulder.  He was strong in his two previous starts before coming out of the game after only 3 innings yesterday.  In his postgame interviews, Smoltz gave a less than positive impression of how he was feeling, saying that he doesn’t know if this is more than just muscle tightness.  Losing Smoltz would be a huge blow to our already crippled pitching staff, but if a month on the DL would keep him healthier through the rest of the season, it’s for the best.  I’m sure we’ll hear more on this soon as Smoltz may head back to Atlanta for medical evaluation.

Tom Glavine - Glavine’s expected to return from the disabled list to make his start this Tuesday.  Tommy has been out for a couple of weeks after leaving a game in the first inning with tightness in his hamstring.  His stint on the DL has gone smoothly however and the Braves are confident that he’ll be ready to go against the Nationals tomorrow night.

Mike Hampton - How can there be an injury report without a man by the name of Mike Hampton.  Hampton’s still looking to make his first start in the majors since 2005 after a slew of injuries.  The latest was straining a pectoral muscle while warming up for a start at Turner Field earlier this season.  Hampton made a start with AAA Richmond this past week and went three innings.  I’d look for at least one more rehab start in Richmond before he heads back to Atlanta to make another attempt at starting.  He joined up with the team in New York this past weekend however and spent some time playing catch pregame.

Peter Moylan - Losing Moylan for the remainder of the season is a scary prospect, but is highly likely at this point in time.  Moylan is currently on the 15-day disabled list with a bone spur in his elbow that has compromised his UCL.  Later this week, he will be reevaluated to make a determination as to whether or not he will need to undergo Tommy John surgery to repair the ligament.  I say that if this is the determination that is made, they shouldn’t waste any time in getting the surgery done to give Moylan as much time to recover as possible.  Tommy John usually requires a year at the minimum for recovery and rehab.

Mike Gonzalez - Gonzalez made an appearance in extended spring training last week throwing 12 pitches.  He still has a ways to go to be ready to pitch in the majors, but hopefully after a month or so more of rehab, we’ll be able to look to him to take a spot in the bullpen.

Rafael Soriano - Soriano’s elbow troubles continue to plague him.  When his stint on the 15-day disabled list was over, he was definitely not ready to come back to pitch.  We need Soriano healthy to take his spot as the closer, especially with Moylan down and out as well.  We’ll have to rely on Acosta for now until we get Soriano back.  Soriano threw a bullpen session last week and experienced some lingering discomfort in the elbow, but will continue to try throwing over the next week.

So there are the current injuries that are hampering the team.  On the offensive side, we desperately need Chipper and Yunel back in the lineup as they are great producers on that side of the ball.  Most of our problems lie in pitching however; 3 of our 5 starters are on this list as well as a number of key bullpen members.  Without pitching, we’re not going to go very far this season.

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.

Braves Look To Stay Perfect Against Mets

The Braves (12-11) are a perfect 3-0 against the Mets (11-11) so far this season and they look to stay on this course today. Tim Hudson (3-1, 2.93) has looked sharp thus far this season as the front end of our great 1-2 punch in the rotation.  Today he’ll face off against John Maine (1-2, 3.57) who has been streaky this season but is very capable of putting together a good outing.

The Braves’ll be missing a few key players today however.  Yunel Escobar is out with his injured hand from a bunt-gone-bad in last night’s game.  He’ll be replaced by Brent Lillibridge who was called up from Richmond last night.  Chipper Jones has also been scratched with back spasms.  He will be replaced by Martin Prado.  These could be key offensive and defensive injuries for the Braves.  We’ll see the effect it has.

The Mets are struggling right now so hopefully we can keep on them.  It’s time for Saturday afternoon baseball!