The Recap

Opening night was a good sign of things to come for the Atlanta Braves. Welcome to the Monday night edition of "the stache" where the weather is frightful, I am still a little under the weather, and where Derek Lowe proves to be huge against the Philadelphia Phillies.

Up here in the high country of North Carolina, we have experienced a 40 degree drop in temperature in a 24 hour time span. It is just a reminder of how far summer is away up here and around the southeast. Weather likes to tease us this time of year with warm, sunny days one day and cold, blustery days the next.

As stated above I am still a little under the weather as I am battling a combination of a cold/allergies. The nose is no longer running as much as it did the day before, but my energy has been completely sapped out of my system all day today. In my 10 o'clock class this morning I nearly dozed off as my droopy eyelids made it hard for me to concentrate on what was going on in class. I had plenty of sleep last night, but I think some of the pills I have been popping have made me a little drowsy today. Which is fine cause that means I am on the right track to full health again. I took two separate 30-40 minute naps during the day today to help rest my weary body. I hardly ever take naps so I know this is the most tired I have felt in quite awhile. This afternoon's run was very slow even by my standards. It was hard enough to just lift my feet off the ground, much less establish any kind of pace or rhythm on the run. Any hill I approached sapped what little energy I had left in my body. Not to mention the 30-40mph wind gusts that were blowing frozen precipitation all over the place. I hope for tomorrow to be a better day, energy wise, this was a rough start to this week.

Onto bigger and better news. The Braves defeated the Phillies 4-1 last night in a contest that wasn't really much of contest until the very end. Derek Lowe pitched a dominant 8 innings, not allowing a single run, and only surrendering 2 hits with no walks and 4 strikeouts. It was vintage Lowe. His sinker and breaking pitches were left down in the strike zone and when he missed his target, he missed low and out of harm for the batters. He had multiple 1-2-3 innings and made many a batter look silly and unable to get good wood on the ball. Helped by some early offense, Lowe and the Braves never looked back until the 9th inning when things got interesting. Mike Gonzalez, the Braves closer for this season, had trouble finding the strike zone early on and throughout his outing as he allowed 1 run to come across the plate as well as bringing the tying runs up to the plate with Ryan Howard and Raul Ibanez coming up to the plate. The powerful, Texas native southpaw mowed down the two slugging lefties with fastballs in the mid to low 90s up in the zone to retire the side and win the ball game for the Bravos. I hope this is not a sign of things to come with Gonzalez as he could provide many a heartache for Braves fans across the land, especially yours truly. Its nice that we got the win but I'd like a little less drama in the 9th, in a game where you had dominated all the way through.
My three stars for the Braves in this game are:

Derek Lowe
Jordan Schafer
Brian McCann

After every Braves ballgame I will list my top 3 stars whether in a winning or losing effort. It's exactly like what the NHL does with their games, except I am going to give the kudos all to one team. Schafer had an outstanding debut, knocking a homer to deep centerfield in his first major league at-bat. Becoming the 99th player to accomplish that feat and the first Braves since Jermaine Dye in 1996. He also had a single and a walk in his debut for the Braves. Expect him to move towards the top of the lineup shortly for this club as he becomes more familiar with the pitching in this league. McCann provided the Braves with their first two runs of the season with a bomb hit into the second deck in right field in the first inning of the game. It set the tone right for this season and gave Lowe some room to work with. Mac also called a good game as he and Lowe seemed to be in sync with the flow of the game.

Some other tidbits from the game. Kelly Johnson looked uncomfortable in the leadoff spot as he seemed to passive in his approach at the plate. Kelly is a player, and the stats prove it, that needs to be aggressive early in the count and look for a pitch to drive into the right-centerfield gap. He is a pull hitter and he needs to recognize this to have a good season this year. He belongs in the 6/7 spot not the leadoff spot for this club. That part of the order fits his aggressive style better than the top of the order. Yunel Escobar looked solid at the plate and in the field as did Chipper Jones who got a hold of a Brett Myers pitch and lined into the gap for a double. This man could roll out the bed and go 2-4 with a 2B. He can flat out rake.

Well that's it for tonight's blog. I hope you enjoyed it and once again if you have any suggestions or recommendations of things you want me to talk about. Feel free to give me a shout. Thanks.

Mb