Tom Glavine woke up Monday morning with his right hamstring feeling no worse, which was good news for the 42-year-old pitcher trying to avoid the disabled list for the first time in his career.

"It's OK," Glavine wrote in a text message to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "No worse. Just trying to move it around as much as I can."

Glavine faced only four hitters Sunday in Washington before feeling his hamstring grab as he extended on a fastball to Wily Mo Pena.

Glavine said he planned to play catch today when the Braves open a series in Florida. If that goes well he could be on the mound for a side session Wednesday. Glavine is still moving forward with the idea that he won't miss his next scheduled start Friday or Saturday against Los Angeles.

"In my mind," he said. "But I've never been through this before, and I'm a little stubborn."

Glavine didn't miss a major-league start until he was 37 in 2003 with the Mets because of a bone spur in his elbow. He has missed only a handful of starts in his 21-year career. But as Glavine said Sunday, after leaving without recording an out, he won't let the pride stand in the way of what's right for the Braves.

"I'm not going to push to stay off the DL for my own personal reasons and put our team in jeopardy," Glavine said. "When you do what I did and come out of the game in the first inning, it's taxing on the bullpen. Thank God we've got an off day (Monday) and everybody can recover."

Lefties galore

Florida's Scott Olsen and Mark Hendrickson will become the eighth and ninth left-handed starters the Braves have faced in their first 14 games.

The Braves lead the majors in left-handed starters faced, playing in a division stocked with them. It's only continuing last year's trend, when the Braves led the majors with 63 games and 2,016 at-bats against lefties.

They went 31-32 versus left-handed starters last year. This year they are 4-3.

"We didn't hit them particularly well last year, and I think we've made some adjustments this spring and hopefully we can continue to hit them decently," said Matt Diaz, a right-handed hitter who played exclusively against left-handers last year. "(We're) taking what they're giving and not trying to hit home runs, being (more) willing to take the singles to right and if they make a mistake, then hit it hard."

One reason the Braves might have less of a disadvantage than some teams facing lefties is because they have two switch-hitters in the heart of the order in Chipper Jones and Mark Teixeira.

Diaz said the Braves also having left-handed every-day players who handle left-handed pitching well.

"Kelly (Johnson), (Mark) Kotsay and (Brian) McCann — I really don't think they struggle with lefties as much as some other left-handed bats do," Diaz said. "Our lefties stay on the ball so well and are willing to go the other way against lefties."

For his career, Johnson hits lefties better (.272 to .260). McCann has hit .303 versus. righties but still .280 versus lefties. Kotsay is even at .281 and .281.

Over the last two seasons, Jeff Francoeur leads the majors with 231 at-bats against lefties. And it's fine by him. Francouer, a right-handed hitter, is hitting .391 (9-for-23) against left-handers this season and only .192 (5-for-26) against right-handers.

He drove in five of his career-high seven runs Saturday off Nationals lefty John Lannan.

"When I see lefties I can allow the ball to travel deep," Francoeur said. "And for me that can be a good thing, especially when we get back to righties, I wait on the ball and stop getting so anxious sometimes."