A couple good wins and one big loss

The Braves bats have looked good these past couple of games against a horrible Rockies rotation. But thats O.K it will get our confidence up going into a big weekend. Finally Jurrjens got some run support, and once again J.J. shined only giving up one run and three hits in 7 innings. Yesterday a 9 run 4th inning gave Vazquez his first win at Turner Field this year. It was great to see all of these two out hits from our boys. Tonight we have Kris Medlen making his major leauge debut against Aaron Cook who gave up 4 run in only 1.2 innings his last start. But we have to talk about the great loss that the Braves had last night.

Omar Infante looks to be out 6-8 weeks after that S.O.B. Manny Corpas hit him with a fastball that fractured a bone in his left hand. This is a brutal injury for a couple reasons.

Reason 1: Omar has been tearing it up this year from the plate batting .349. His OBP is over .400 when he hits leadoff, and he has been our only player that has done consistently well in this spot.

Reason 2: Infante can literally play every position on the field. He was our only player that could back up Schafer if he needed a day off. Now, if need be, Frenchy might have to play center and we would stick Diaz in right.

Reason 3: Omar Infante is better than Kelly Johnson in my opinion, maybe not in the field but his bat makes up for it. I fully believe that the reason Infante has been playing more and Kelly less is too see if Infante can handle everyday second base. I think the Wren was thinking about making a move for another bat by trading Johnson. Now we will just have to wait and see.

Let's look at some positives though.

Positive 1: The Braves are planning on calling up prospect Diory Hernandez from Gwinett. He is batting .355 and is considered by many to be a top 5 prospect. I hope we get to see what he can do.

Positive 2: Kelly Johnson has been coming around in the 6th spot. This is where he is most comfortable; he knows it, cox knows it, we know it. I really do have faith and confidence in Kelly at that spot in the lineup. And I really think we will be O.K. with our lineup right now.

Positive 3: This is a big weekend for the Braves. The Phils are playing in New York against a red hot Yankees team. The Mets are playing in Boston against a "Papi finally homered" Red Sox team. And the Bravos get a Toronto that may be cooling off a little. I am hoping, but not expecting the Braves to win the first game of this series (Halladay vs. Kawakami). But I really believe we can take two out of three from the Jay's ( Lowe and J.J. pitching the next two games).

I do not see either the Phils or the Mets winning their series, so the Braves could be sitting on top come Monday.

Positive 4: I like what Cox is doing with the lineup. We put up 12 runs yesterday without McCann, Kotchman, or a hot Garret Anderson starting. I like the lineup that Cox put out there Tuesday night:

Yunel Escobar

Casey Kotchman

Chipper Jones

Brian McCann

Garret Anderson

Kelly Johnson

Jeff Francoeur

Jordan Schafer

This lineup gave us 13 hits. Of course only two were extra basehits (both Kotchman doubles.) Kotchman is a doubles machine and I like him in the two hole because he is a contact hitter and does hit a lot of doubles. This means runners in scoring position for Chipper. I am not crazy about Yunel leading off, but who else are you going to put there, not . . . Kelly Johnson is very comfortable hitting 6th and always hits better when there are runners on base. With this lineup I take back my statement about wanting to move Jeff F. up in the order. I still wish he had more protection and pitchers had to throw him strikes. Maybe this will start happening because Schafer has 4 RBI the last two games, he had 4 total RBI before these two games. He still struck out 3 times last night, but he has been cutting down on the K's lately.

All in all, I think this is a solid lineup that can put up 4+ runs consistently; and that is really all we need.

Positive 5: Jo Jo got hurt last night. (thats mean but it is a positive)

Hear is something to think about. The starting rotation in general is getting into the 7th inning right? right. So I don't think we need 7 relievers in the bullpen. We use Soriano, Moylan, and Gonzo in general. The others get used like twice a week. I think we need to send Parr down and bring up Gregor Blanco or somebody that can be another utility player at least until Infante gets back. Just a thought.

LET'S GO BRAVES!