While so much around them has gone awry in the early part of the Braves' season, Chipper Jones and rookie pitcher Jair Jurrjens have been like beacons shining through it all.

Jurrjens pitched six strong innings, and Jones hit a decisive two-run homer in a 5-3 series-opening win against San Diego on Tuesday night at Turner Field, as the Braves won their fourth in a row since a four-game losing skid.

"He's been tremendous this year," Jones said of Jurrjens (4-2), who allowed one run and seven hits and improved to 3-0 with a 2.08 ERA in his past four starts. "Words can't describe how good he's been, how solid and consistent."

Surging center fielder Mark Kotsay added two hits including his second homer in as many games for the Braves (16-15), who have won 11 of their past 17.

Three batters into the first inning, Jurrjens had given up a run on two doubles by Brian Giles and Adrian Gonzalez. But he allowed only five singles and a walk while recording the next 17 outs, including eight strikeouts.

"Nothing rattles J.J.," said manager Bobby Cox, whose Braves improved their National League-best home record to 12-4, compared to their league-worst 4-11 mark on the road.

"For a first full year in the big leagues, he has great mound presence and carries himself extremely well, on and off the field," Cox added.

There was some late-inning tension for the Braves, after the Padres got two runs against reliever Will Ohman in the seventh and a pair of singles against Manny Acosta in the ninth.

Left-hander Royce Ring was brought in to face Gonzalez, who crushed a hanging breaking ball, sending it high toward the right-field seats.

A collective gasp was audible from a crowd of 21,657 when the ball sailed less that 10 feet to the right of the right-field foul pole, a would-be three-run homer rendered a harmless foul.

Ring then struck out Gonzalez, and right-hander Jeff Bennett induced a game-ending flyout to earn his first major-league save. Jones marveled at how Jurrjens, a 22-year-old right-hander from Curacao, has avoided the up-and-down performance arc that most rookie pitchers endure.

Meanwhile, Jurrjens marveled at how Jones, the 36-year-old third baseman, keeps hitting ... and hitting ... and hitting.

The major-league batting leader went 1-for-2 with two walks to raise his average a point to .426, and Jones' two-run homer in the third inning put the Braves ahead 4-1 and gave him 10 homers and 29 RBIs in 29 games.

"I don't know how he does it, but I hope he keeps doing it the whole season," Jurrjens said of Jones, who has hit .458 with nine homers and 20 RBIs in 19 games since April 12, with 12 walks and only five strikeouts in that span.

Besides hitting his third homer of the season and raising his average to .308, Kotsay also made a highlight-reel defensive play, reaching out for an over-the-shoulder catch at the warning track.

"We're playing good baseball; we needed to play good baseball," Kotsay said, referring to how the team has rebounded since a 1-4 road trip.

Kotsay said he would normally take more satisfaction from the catch, but on this night he gave the nod to his homer off Padres starter Chris Young (2-3), since Kotsay had been 0-for-12 against the right-hander before Tuesday.

The Braves have two more games in this series against the Padres, losers of 15 of their past 19 games. Then it's back on the road for a six-game Pennsylvania trip that starts in Pittsburgh and ends with a series against the National League East-leading Philadelphia Phillies.

After playing so well on the road and poorly at home for much of the 2007 season, the Braves have reversed that trend. They've won 21 of 27 home games since Sept. 5, and Jones has hit .447 with eight homers and 32 RBIs in those games.

Jurrjens has emerged as an early NL Rookie of the Year favorite, posting a 2.84 ERA in seven starts for the Braves. He's allowed just one run seven times in 14 major league starts for Detroit and Atlanta, and allowed seven hits or fewer in 13 of 14 starts.