Never before in his Big League career has big money Johan Santana allowed 12 hits in a game. Then again, he may never have faced a team as red hot and on fire as the 2008 Atlanta Braves in May. The Braves bats are rockin' and their pitching continues to dominate night after night as they sweep the Mets in 4 games to put their win streak at 5.

Tim Hudson was sent in with the tall order to beat Santana, the Mets hope for 2008, for the second time this year (Smoltz beat him the first time). After losing Tom Glavine to the Braves this season, the Mets turned in the cash to get Santana as their ace. The Braves had other plans, and as they showed tonight, their great momentum can overturn an early deficit against even the greatest of pitchers.

For the 4th straight game, Chipper Jones raised his average now at .412 after going 2-4 and Teixeira stayed hot as did Kelly Johnson. But, the big story being Tim Hudson who, after giving up early back-to-back homers battled back to keep the ball down and gave up nothing more completing 8 solid innings and gaining his 7th win of the season.

The Mets had a brief moment of excitement knowing their ace was on the mound after getting the early lead but their recent frustrations mounted on while learning in 4 games way exactly what the Braves are made of.

The Marlins, however, had no intention of letting the surging Braves inch closer to the hallowed 1st place mark and continue to play great baseball themselves garnering another win and keeping the Braves a game and a half out of first.

Next Game: 6:30 CST at Turner Field
Doug Davis, LHP (1-1, 3.72) vs. Jo-Jo Reyes, LHP (2-1, 4.12)

When the Braves have it all going, they may have the best team in the National League. The have a potential shutout 3 games out of 5 and the other 2 starts folks like Campillo and Reyes have shown the potential to be great, if not awesome.

Of course, no fierce team could be complete without solid offense and the Braves are finally clicking on all cylinders.

Mark Teixeira had 3 hits in the game as well as Brian McCann & a resurgent Jeff Francoeur who was a double shy of the cycle in Wednesday night's 11-4 blowout.

Chipper raised his average again going 1-2 and now batting a Major League best .410 but had to come out late in the game after being hit in the ankle by a pitch.

Jair Jurrjens picked up his 5th win of the year after yet another dominant outing, going 7 strong innings allowing only 5 hits, 2 runs (1 earned), 2 walks and 1 strikeout. He dropped his ERA to 2.64.

The Braves go for the 4 game sweep at 6pm Central Time as two Aces match up. Johan Santana (5-2) for the Mets and Tim Hudson (6-3) for the Braves. The Mets will try and stop the slide and the Braves will go for 5 in a row with hope the Marlins will finally give them a chance to gain some ground in the East. The Braves are currently tied for second place, 1.5 back of Florida.

You can't know how long something like this will continue for Chipper Jones. But, it's an amazing sight to see. One I'll surely remember the rest of my life and pass on my children as Chipper's amazing hot streak appears for years to come in trivia questions. About the only way Chipper can continue to raise his average is to get two hits a night and hope not to end up with 5 or more official at bats. When 2 for 5 lowers your average in May you know you're doing something special. With a little luck and some 2 for 3 games Chipper could actually be still above .400 in June as we're now a full week into May.

I think his influence has rubbed off. Suddenly McCann's bat is taking off and balls are dropping, Kotsay too. Of course, Escobar continues to hit, no shock there and as long as he continues to be on base in front of Chipper, Chipper's going to rack up a lot of RBIs. He'll end up with 140 and 40 HRs or so if this keeps up! Stay hot Chipper! It's worth the price of tickets to see this offense.

However, good offense coupled with bad pitching is not worth much. So, happily for the Braves, they have both working right now in beautiful harmony. Starting pitchers are sharp as ever. Hudson shows week after week why he's the starter the Braves knew they signed, Glavine's still Glavine and Jurrjens is still wowing fans and opponents with his presence on the mound. If Jo-Jo Reyes can get energized from the Braves 5 game win streak and pitches like he did Saturday then fans can really be excited.

Hopefully Soriano will be back in the 'pen soon but until he his, Boyer, Acosta, Ring, Campillo and Bennett are dominating the end of most games. Add Mike Gonzalez, Rafael Soriano and John Smoltz to the end of the games and the bullpen might become the most feared in the National League, if not the Majors.

All above to say, the Braves have it working. They're hot. They're hitting. They're pitching. And they're STILL NOT HEALTHY. Good news for Braves fans, bad news for the NL East. If the Braves can do this now, just wait.

Noon game today (Central Time). Braves go for 6 in a row.

Go Braves!

The Braves beat the Mets in the first of three Friday night. Jair Jurrjens continues to show that he belongs in the Big Leagues. Even after getting rustled in the 3rd, not getting the close strike calls and seeing his manager get ejected while walking 4 consecutive batters he buckled down and retired the next 10 batters faced.

The Braves battled hard and ended up on top of the Mets 6-3.

The win puts the Braves in 3rd place in the NL East and 2 games back.

Hudson regained his fastball and calmed the fears that arose when his last outing topped in the middle 80's (remember Mike Gonzalez?). While not at his best he still had the Nationals frustrated as even their hard hits against him were turned into outs by fine defense. Hudson took a shutout into the 7th but after giving up 2 runs he was removed completing 6 2/3 innings.

Matt Diaz came back to hitting getting three hits in the game and again showing his baserunning skills on a Tim Hudson sacrifice bunt that Diaz scored on. Again he followed the 3rd baseman down the line and once Zimmerman let the ball out of his hand toward firstbase, Diaz bolted home. The Nationals didn't even attempt to throw him out at the plate.

Speaking of being thrown out at the plate, Jeff Francoeur has his first assist of the year gunning down Cristian Guzman attempting to score from second on a single. McCann applied the tag and Guzman was out by 3 feet. That wouldn't be the only time the Nationals got caught taking extra bases. In the top of the 5th a hard hit ball to second went off a diving Martin Prado's glove and into center field. On a very heads up play by Escobar he raced to shallow center, picked up the ball and fired a strike to McCann as Lopez tried to score from second to save another run for Hudson. It was a little revenge for Escobar who should have 2 hits on the night but was instead credited with a sacrifice bunt when he easily beat out the throw to first but was called out by firstbase umpire Dan Iassogna. A shocked Braves dugout while Bobby Cox was out to argue but it appeared to me that Iassogna realized he missed the call and Bobby was quickly back in the dugout.

Prado went 2-5 with 2 RBIs
Escobar 1-3
Chipper 1-3 with 1 RBI
Teixeira 1-5
Francoeur 1-5 with 1 RBI
McCann 2-4 with 1 RBI
Diaz 3-4
Gregor Blanco 2-3

On the bullpen front, to be without some key members they're doing great. Royce Ring pitched 1/3 of an inning to complete the 7th for Hudson. He did however allow the inherited runner to score. Buddy Carlyle went 1 inning giving up 2 hits, a run, a walk and 1 strikeout. Manny Acosta finished out the game looking sharp. He gave up 1 hit in the 9th but no runs and 1 strikeout.

John Smoltz goes for 3000 strikeouts tonight at home against the Nationals.

6:00pm CDT on SportSouth

John Smoltz (RHP, 3-0, 0.56) vs. John Lannan (LHP, 0-2, 4.86).

Labels: Atlanta Braves Baseball, Brian McCann, Jeff Francoeur, Matt Diaz, Tim Hudson

Anytime the Braves can muster up three wins in a row without the help of John Smoltz and Tim Hudson, the team and fans have a lot to be excited about. Even more so, anytime you're riding a 4 game winning streak and the next pitcher in line is Tim Hudson followed by Smoltz you're just, well, thrilled.

And add to that some change of luck for Mark Kotsay and Mark Teixeira, and the continued blazing hot bat of Chipper Jones (provided his Quads don't keep him out of the lineup) and the emergence of Gregor Blanco in left and Jair Jurrjens on the mound Braves fans should be buying up tickets as fast as they can get them to watch this team play.

Just days after a shocking sweep in Colorado and a list of injuries added to that, Braves Manager Bobby Cox called a team meeting to keep the team focused. Did it work? The Braves haven't lost since and finally put pitching and hitting together in one game and have outscoured their opponents greatly since then.

Yesterday's sweep of the Dodgers put the team at .500 and in great position to play the Nationals at Turner Field with success. Hudson gets the start Monday night and Smoltz on Tuesday.

Check out the link to the updated EFF (updated after each game). This is the best the Braves have had in a long time!

Wins are always welcome, but this win to end a long & dismal road trip was most welcome for the Braves and fans alike.

While watching yet another dominating performance by John Smoltz who escaped several jams by striking out an unbelievable 10 batters in 5 innings fans continue to see why even hurt, John Smoltz will go down as one of the most frustrating pitchers this generation of hitters has ever seen. He gave up no runs, lowering his ERA to an eyepopping 0.56 and winning each of his first three starts and moving within 4 strikeouts of the rare 3000 circle.

The bullpen nicely came in the 6 inning and kept the Marlins wondering if this was the same team they've seen the first two nights. The bullpen gave up no hits and no runs in 4 innings. Ohman, Resop, Acosta & Carlyle completed an inning a piece.

On the hitting front the Braves finally got a boost from several of their players. Of course, Chipper continued to be Chipper going 4-4 with 2 homers and 3 RBIs. His Batting average was raised to .443.

Kelly Johnson, Mark Teixeira & Brian McCann all went deep as well including a back-to-back-to-back string by Jones, Teixeira and McCann in the 5th.

Francoeur went 2-5, Kotsay 2-5 and Pena delivered a pinch-hit double in front of a crowd that included some of his family and friends in Florida.