After stumble at home, Braves hit the road

By Bud L. Ellis
budmansbravesbeat.mlblogs.com

ATLANTA -- Going to keep this short, as we're now nearly 24 hours clear of Thursday's offensive (and umpiring) debacle against the Pirates at Turner Field, and a few hours away from the start of the road trip.

No way in the world the Braves should've lost that game yesterday. No way. I told myself when Matt Capps (who's from my hometown, by the way) fanned Brian McCann to seal Atlanta's 3-2 loss that I would keep myself off the blog for 24 hours, lest I rip apart the team from bow to stern.

Close enough to 24 hours, although I'm still seething about the Braves blowing the absolute best start by an Atlanta hurler this season. Javier Vazquez was dealing, folks. Total command of the strike zone. Could do anything he wanted at any time. Even the homer he gave up wasn't a bad pitch.

When your starter gives up two hits and one run in eight innings with no walks and 12 strikeouts, you have to win that game. I don't care if you're playing the Red Sox, the Yankees, the Pirates, or my kids' Little League team, you have to win that game. The Braves managed to lose it, and it hurts.

I understand it's hard to sweep a four-game series, but the Braves really needed to take care of the Pirates Wednesday and Thursday before embarking on this roadie through Baltimore, Cincinnati and Boston. The Orioles are struggling, yes, but the Reds have that great young pitching (and the Braves never play well in the little bandbox along the banks of the Ohio), and we all know what the Red Sox have been doing lately.

So here are the Braves, heading into tonight at Baltimore with Tommy Hanson toeing the slab for his second career start. Save the fastballs that were up in the zone in the middle innings Sunday, I don't think the youngster could've had a better debut. His stuff is electric. I love his makeup and moxie. I don't think pitching on the road will faze him one bit (and typically I shudder when a rookie makes his first start away from home).

As we all know, the pitching hasn't been the problem. Vazquez's effort yesterday was better than Derek Lowe's season-opening gem in Philly, better than Kenshin Kawakami's duel with Roy Halladay. The Braves won both of those games. They should've won yesterday.

But they didn't. The season marches ahead. On to Baltimore ... hopefully the Braves packed their bats.

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