Section 435 An Atlanta Braves blog. From the upper deck at Turner Field.

Jo-Jo Wins one for the Chipper

If I wasn’t so numb from the parade of bad news over the last week, I might have panicked last night at the news that Chipper Jones got hit in the face by a caroming baseball in batting practice before the game at Anaheim. It sounded like a death blow for the season. Chipper Jones out. Our record this season without Chipper Jones was 0-6. Just one more situation in which we couldn’t win.

And yet…

We managed to make things happen and win the game against one of the AL’s top teams. And Chipper turned out to be just fine. Maybe that moment will end up being a different sort of turning point for the season.

On Jo-Jo Reyes

With each start, Jo-Jo Reyes is starting to look more and more like a quality major league pitcher. He looks much more confident, and he’s not getting flustered so easily. It’s as if someone finally told him that as a starting pitcher in the Major Leagues, giving up a run or two doesn’t make a bad start. His last four starts have been strong:

And those numbers include a 4 run performance against Philadelphia in which he pitched better than his line showed.

The best news in all of that might be the 7+ innings per game average. Last night, Jo-Jo went a career high 8. Having someone besides Huddy going more than 5 each game is big considering how worn down the bullpen already is.

Here’s to Jo-Jo.

JoJo is actually impressing me lately. He’s still young and though the win total doesn’t look that great he’s had some very good starts. We can forget about his starts against Arizona and Philly but the start in Milwaukee was a 2 hit gem on the road and last night was a great start against a good team.

I still think he has some proving to do but I like what he’s been giving us lately.

Yeah, his numbers are a bit inflated because of those two starts (though, his ERA is way below the 6+ of last year). And he’s suffered the same bad luck in the W-L that all of our starters have.

A lot of the good feeling about Jo-Jo lately comes from the intangible that I was talking about today, but I think looking at his K/BB between this year and last year is really indicative of those intangibles.

Well you’re right and for someone who wasn’t on the Opening Day roster and having such a banged up starting staff it’s a breath of fresh air. A mild breeze, but still something to be positive about.