Braves News World

The Good: The draft replenished the Braves’ minor league rosters which have lost all of their decent players to the major league club. … Kelly Johnson is finally finding his groove and should cruise past the Mendoza Line any day now. He was 5-for-13 with 3 runs and 3 RBIs in the series. … Woo hoo! Bobby Cox finally sat the injured and struggling Rafael Furcal in favor of Wilson Betemit for most of the series. Up to now it seemed the better Betemit hit the less playing time he got. He had 3 hits, 2 runs and 2 RBIs during the 3 games. … Jorge Sosa did a great job holding the Rangers at bay in his first start of the year. He allowed 2 runs on 5 hits in 5 innings pitched. He struck 7 and walked none. We can only hope he can continue producing quality starts while the suffering starters heal.

The Bad: Another of the Braves’ patented Loss-Win-Loss series accounted for the 5th series in a row they have lost. … Kyle Davies fell to pieces again. He was rocked for 6 runs in 2 1/3 innings. He gave up 8 hits and walked 4 in his worst major league outing. … Someone needs to tell Andy Marte its alright to have more than one hit in a game. He’s working on a 5-game hitting streak with 5 hits during that span. Of course he’ll eventually settle in and put up some nice numbers this year (perhaps nice enough to push Chipper Jones to first base when he returns in the 2nd half of the season). He’s been putting the bat on the ball but hasn’t found many gaps yet. It’s just hard to be patient after the big build-up.

The Ugly: Oh, the humanity! Tim Hudson is now the 3rd Braves starting pitcher to bite the dust. It was apparent something wasn’t right with him Monday when he walked 5 and was pummeled for 5 runs on 5 hits (2 homers) in 2 2/3 innings. That means Sosa, who has not fared well as a starter in the past, will become the 4th starter and even Cox may not yet know who will occupy the 5th spot when necessary! This is really getting ridiculous.

The carnage continues! The Braves will have to endure yet another injury as Tim Hudson has been placed on the 15-day disabled list with a strained left oblique muscle. This is the same injury that caused him to be on the DL from June 23rd until August 7th last year. Jorge Sosa will start in place of Hudson against the Reds on Saturday on 3 days rest. Now over half of the Braves’ starting rotation is on the DL as Hudson joins Mike Hampton and John Thomson on the bench. When you consider also that John Smoltz is likely still nowhere near 100% due to nagging injuries, the Braves really have an uphill battle in their quest to win a 14th straight division title.

Jim Brower to the rescue… Well, not exactly. But he was about the only experienced reliever available that the Braves could afford. Brower has signed with the Braves through the rest of the 2005 season. He made 32 relief appearances with the Giants this year, compiling a 2-1 record and an unimpressive 6.53 ERA, before being released by the Giants on June 13th.