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