I’m feeling kinda dumb about my Cassandra-like warnings that Jaret Wright shouldn’t be in the rotation. Wright went seven scoreless innings, struck out eight, allowed only two hits, and walked only two, and lowered his ERA to 3.54 for the season. Pretty darned good for a rehab case, especially against a team that in its last two games had scored a combined 24 runs.
The Braves also managed to score tonight without a lot of help from the Drew-Chipper-Estrada nexus, which combined to go 2-13 with one walk, two runs, and no RBI. The engine was the bottom of the order. Franco had three hits, drove in one, and scored two; Andruw had a hit and a walk, scored twice, and drove in one; Marrero was 2-3 with a walk and the big hit in the game, a bases-clearing double in the third. Even DeRosa got an RBI.
The only cloud was the ninth inning, when John Smoltz came in with a six-run lead and gave up four runs. He even walked a man — admittedly, it was Frank “The Braves Should Have Drafted Me, But They Took Tyler Houston Instead” Thomas — which was the first walk he’s issued this year. I prefer to think it’s a blip. Reitsma pitched a perfect eighth.
The remainder of the series will continue to be an aliens-only affair, but tomorrow night’s game will be on WGN if you have it. I suggest you turn the sound down, though.
A little life out of Marrero would be nice. DeRosa has been not horrible this month which is an imporovement over May where he started making me wish for Rafael Belliard again.
Since I couldn’t see the game I had to read the game log. It looks like Wright is doing his job now if we could get Hampton to do his.
Will we ever get 2 games over .500? Geez.