Braves News World

Braves rookie outfielder Kelly Johnson has won National League Player of the Week honors for his play this past week. During games played June 13th to 19th he batted .417 with 3 home runs and a league-leading 11 RBIs. He accumulated 2 of those homers and 4 RBIs (only the 4th Braves rookie to do so) in Friday night’s game. With the Braves tallying a NL-leading 44 runs last week, Braves hitters Wilson Betemit, Julio Franco and Andruw Jones were also in the running for the award (each hit at least .350 with 2 or more homers last week).

The Good: Nothing like a little Cincy pitching to cure the offense. The Braves have now scored 63 runs in their last 8 games. … John Smoltz continues to be the only starter the Braves can count on these days. For the third straight game, Smoltz walked none on Thursday. He allowed 2 runs on only 4 hits and struck out 9 in winning his 6th game. It’s a 2-man race between Smoltz and Andruw Jones to be the Braves’ sole representative at the All-Star Game this year. … Marcus Giles went was 7-for-18 with 5 runs scored and an RBI. … Andruw raised his average 10 points to .265 and leads the NL with 19 home runs after taking 3 out in the series. … Kelly Johnson is heating up and has officially eclipsed the Mendoza Line. He was 5-for-11 in the series and blasted 2 homers and drove in 6 runs Friday night! … Like Johnson, Wilson Betemit was 5-for-11 with a couple homers. … Julio Franco was 4-for-9 and hit 2 homers Saturday night (becoming the oldest player to hit 2 in game) before being taken out of the game with a virus and high fever.

The Bad: The starting pitching continues to be shaky for the most part. Jorge Sosa was again effective but Bobby Cox keeps him on a hard pitch count so the bullpen still ends up logging many innings in his games. … Horacio Ramirez still isn’t fooling anyone. He gave up 5 runs on 8 hits and struckout only 1. … Kyle Davies was rocked again for 5 runs on 9 hits Sunday afternoon. He was pitching on 3 days rest but it was more like 3 1/2 since he only lasted 2 1/3 innings in his prior start.

The Ugly: Just when we thought the bullpen was getting on track… They had thrown 8 2/3 scoreless innings in the series until Sunday. Then all hell broke lose! 3 times the Braves came from behind to tie the ballgame. 3 times the bullpen blew it. Dan Kolb, John Foster, and Adam Bernero each got in on the action, giving up 1, 2, and 3 runs respectively. I guess a sweep was too much to ask for given the state of the team, even if we were playing the lowly Reds! All we can do is keep winning series and hope the Nationals return to their legacy of losing.