Milwaukee — The Braves avoided having to place outfielder Mark Kotsay on the disabled list along with outfielder Matt Diaz on Wednesday when Kotsay woke up with his back feeling better.

Kotsay felt good enough to shag flyballs in the outfield during batting practice. His improvement will allow the Braves, at least for now, to avoid making a roster move. Kotsay was out of the lineup for the third consecutive game Wednesday night.

"I've made a lot of progress from yesterday to today," Kotsay said Wednesday. "I'll go out and do some baseball stuff see how I feel and go from there. I think I'm moving the right direction with this and staying away from something long-term."

Diaz traveled to Atlanta, where he is scheduled for an MRI on his left knee Thursday. Diaz crashed into the outfield wall trying to catch a foul ball Tuesday night against the Brewers and will have his posterior cruciate ligament examined for a possible tear.

Reliever Rafael Soriano was activated Wednesday, taking Diaz's spot on the roster.

Gregor Blanco was in center field Wednesday night and Omar Infante in left. Blanco has played more in left — Infante has played only a couple of games there in his career — but Blanco has the better arm. Greg Norton can also play left.

"Flexible bench; that's the trick," manager Bobby Cox said.

Johnson gets aggressive

Second baseman Kelly Johnson said it's not simply dropping out of the leadoff spot that has helped him on offense. A change in hitting approach, from passive to more aggressive, has helped him go on a career-high 13-game hitting streak entering Wednesday's game.

Since dropping from the leadoff spot on May 13, Johnson has hit .395 with 17 hits in 12 games, including seven for extra bases. As a leadoff hitter, Johnson was hitting .263 (30-for-114).

"I made a decision I wanted to be aggressive with fastballs," Johnson said. "I felt like I had been missing pitches. I was almost too passive in hitter's counts. I wanted to move up on the plate, be ready to hit fastballs. I've been getting the bat out and hitting them better than I was, and I've been hitting the off-speed stuff, too."

Johnson said it's been a matter of being ready to hit from the first pitch on.

"Not being like 'I'm going to take a pitch here, work the count here, see what he's got,' " Johnson said. "The times I've done that I get a hit, yeah, or draw a walk, but doing it on a regular basis, more often than not, I think I cheat myself as a hitter."

Bennett adjustment

The day after Jeff Bennett failed to hold Bill Hall at second base and allowed him a costly steal of third, he talked with pitching coach Roger McDowell about some adjustments he can make to be more deceptive.

Hall scored the winning run Tuesday night from third base on a sacrifice fly.

"He guessed right," Bennett said. "You've got to keep him off guard where he can't guess right. ... You've got to make adjustments and learn from every game."