ESPN – Braves vs. Rockies – Box Score – June 16, 2008

The Braves have suddenly won three out of their last four road games. Go figure.

Jair Jurrjens started on long rest, and looked much fresher than he has; giving young pitchers sporadic starts off (that is, not the sit on the bench for 20 days in a row usage the Braves used to inflict on their fifth starters) probably helps, but most of the time you really can’t afford to rest a good starter. He went 7 2/3 and gave up eight hits, but it’s Coors Field, which humidor or no greatly increases batting averages. He only walked two and struck out seven, and 72 of his 103 pitches were strikes.

Chipper finally got some hits (2 for 4 with a walk) and apparently that was what the Braves needed. He drove in two runs in the fifth on a single (the Braves had threatened some, and mainly made the Rockies’ starter work, so he was around 100 pitches at this point) and scored on a Francoeur “double” (a combination of the usual overdeep outfield required by the park and inspired bad outfield play by Matt Holliday, who helped the Braves score four of their runs).

KJ didn’t have a hit, but did walk three times and score twice; Teixeira didn’t either, but drove in a run with a groundout. Escobar had one hit and a walk, and everybody else had two hits. Again, Coors Field. It’s a joke, and it will always be a joke, and while it’s nice that they took some of the home runs out of the equation it’s still far too easy to mount the death-by-a-million-cuts offense. Luckily, the Rockies couldn’t get their cuts together until the ninth, when pseudo-closer of the moment (thankfully, Gonzalez is expected to join the team Wednesday, until he falls victim to the Closer Curse) allowed two walks and a hit in the ninth. (Ohman had finished the eighth when Jurrjens got tired.)

On to the next ridiculous ballpark, the good old-fashioned home run haven in Texas.