DEL.ICIO.USRookie Parr impresses in Braves’ victory
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Had the Braves’ pitching bar not been lowered to alarmingly mediocre standards in recent months, what James Parr did Thursday night still would’ve been impressive.
In his major-league debut, the 22-year-old right-hander performed not like a fringe prospect with less-than-overwhelming stuff, but like a kid intent on sticking around.
ALLEN SULLIVAN / aesullivan@ajc.com
Rookie James Parr allowed two hits and three walks in six scoreless innings.
Parr allowed two hits and three walks in six scoreless innings of a 2-0 win against Washington in a sparsely attended series opener at Turner Field, snapping the Nationals’ five-game winning streak against the Braves.
“It’s unbelievable,” said Parr, who won two days after arriving from Class AAA Richmond, when thrust into a starting assignment in place of Jo-Jo Reyes. “Any time you’re as young as I am and you get this chance, you want to make the most of it.”
He didn’t throw as many strikes as he did most nights in the minor leagues, but Parr got through some nervousness and found a better rhythm — and breaking ball — after the first couple of innings.
“What a night he had,” manager Bobby Cox said of Parr, who posted the first scoreless outing by a Braves starter since Aug. 7, when Charlie Morton pitched seven scoreless innings against Milwaukee. “This [Washington] club has been hitting like crazy, and he shut them down.”
He did it in front of his girlfriend and his parents, who flew in from Albuquerque, N.M., and made it just in time to see him make his debut. Parr didn’t find out until Wednesday on the team flight from Florida that he would be starting Thursday.
He was thrust into the assignment in place of Jo-Jo Reyes, whose turn was pushed back to Sunday after Reyes had spent the past two days with his wife for the birth of their first child.
Kelly Johnson went 2-for-4 with a double and a triple for the Braves, who won for just the sixth time in 24 games.
“[Johnson] has been a little more aggressive, not waiting so long in counts to swing at something,” said Cox, whose Braves improved to 5-10 against the last-place Nationals.
Shairon Martis pitched five innings and took the loss in his major-league debut, the first time since the 2001 season that both teams’ starting pitchers debuted in the same game.
Parr probably didn’t know the Braves had a 6.98 ERA during their 5-18 skid before Thursday, but he did know their pitchers had issued a lot of costly walks lately, and that the bullpen was taxed. He wasn’t pleased with his three walks Thursday, but he was with everything else.
Asked if it was as good as he had dreamed it would be, he said, “Yeah — better. Especially when I came out [of the game] and the guys shook my hand.”
It had been over a month since the Braves last allowed fewer than two runs, when Jorge Campillo and three relievers tossed a seven-hit shutout against Milwaukee on Aug. 3.
“When he missed, he didn’t miss in the [strike] zone,” Johnson said of Parr.
Relievers Jeff Bennett, Julian Tavarez and closer Mike Gonzalez each allowed one hit in one scoreless inning to complete Thursday’s shutout victory, the seventh of the season for the Braves.
Gonzalez gave up a leadoff double by Ryan Zimmerman in the ninth, then struck out the next three batters in order to convert his ninth consecutive save this season and 39th in a row in a streak dating to June 2004 when he was a rookie with Pittsburgh.
“Gonzalez threw some breaking balls like I’ve never seen him throw,” Johnson said. “Awesome.”
Ronnie Belliard had both hits against Parr and went 3-for-3 before leaving with a strained groin in the seventh inning. Belliard had a second-inning double and a fourth-inning infield single that went off the end of Parr’s outstretched glove.
Parr issued a pair of one-out walks in the third inning, he recorded 11 outs in the last 11 batters he faced, inducing a double-play grounder by Elijah Dukes. Not bad for a kid whose fastball registered a pedestrian 84-86 mph on the radar gun, a few ticks below his usual range in the minors.
“He’s sneaky-quick,” Cox said of Parr, a former fourth-round pick who had slipped from the Braves’ top-prospects lists the past couple of years. “He’s not going to light up the radar, but the ball gets on [hitters]. He’s got a loopy curveball that’s pretty good and a changeup. I was impressed. It’s a great way to break in. He did a good job.”
