Braves stay hot at home
The Atlanta Braves are usually a very good team at any time, and sit atop the National League East with a respectable 64-47 record. But the Braves are a great team when they play at Turner Field and in front of home fans. So it’s not surprising that Atlanta were able to beat the San Francisco Giants, who'd lost three of their previous four, 6-3 on Sunday.
The Braves' 39-15 home record is the best in the Majors and Atlanta looks to be continuing to dig in at all costs and make any team pay when they come to Turner Field.
The game got off to an interesting start when Freddy Sanchez hit a pop up, but Atlanta’s Alex Gonzalez couldn’t make the easy catch because his shades were on his cap covering his team’s logo rather than his eyes, and the infielder lost the ball in the sun.
But the former Blue Jay redeemed himself on the next batter by making a diving grab and tossing the ball to first base to start the inning-ending double-play. In the bottom of the second, David Ross sent a pitch from Jonathan Sanchez deep left for a two-run shot, his first home run of the season, and gave the Braves a 2-1 lead.
“I finally ran into one,” Ross said of his first homer of the season. “Guys were giving me a (hard time) so I got that off my chest, finally. I thought I was getting too old, that I didn’t have any pop anymore.”
In the fifth inning, Atlanta started to assert themselves and were in control with a 4-1 lead, before Gonzalez ripped a single to left centre field. Still in the fifth, Brooks Conrad took the plate with the bases loaded and delivered an RBI base hit that brought in Gonzalez for the score and Atlanta never relinquished the lead. Gonzalez went 2-4 with an RBI.
While Ross can breathe a sigh of relief after getting the monkey off his back, the Braves cannot, as they maintain their lead over Philadelphia by only two games. The series victory has left Atlanta feeling good about their accomplishments and excited moving forward. "We almost swept them and the Giants have a good team," Braves manager Bobby Cox said.
But Ross’ home run may sting Sanchez and the Giants for the next couple of days. "They are a pretty good team...but Ross was the pitch that killed me. That was bad pitching today," said Sanchez. "We came here to win all the games; we just have to go back home and start winning again.”
Sanchez surrendered four runs in four innings, while his counterpart Derek Lowe left in the sixth inning after experiencing cramping. He yielded five hits and two runs in 5 1/3 innings. Now the Giants will return home and try to regroup against the Chicago Cubs for a four-game series beginning Monday.
Tags: