DEL.ICIO.USMajor League Baseball: N.L. East
Braves support Jurrjens, who flirts with no-hitter
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Lost in a rubble of run support that Jair Jurrjens hadn’t seen in a month came a gem of a pitching performance.
The 23-year-old Curacao native weaved a no-hit effort in and around nine runs from the Braves’ offense before his no-hit bid ended with two outs in the seventh inning of an 11-1 pounding over the Phillies.
Curtis Compton/ccompton@ajc.com
Jair Jurrjens finally got some run support, on a night that he really didn’t need it.
Former Braves catcher Paul Bako singled to give the Phillies one hit to the Braves’ 11 at that point and put at least some kind of damper on a big night for the Braves.
Jurrjens, now 6-6 despite a 2.73 earned-run average, snapped his four-game losing streak with seven one-hit innings. He walked four, struck out six and allowed only one unearned run on his own two-base throwing error.
Jurrjens said afterward he didn’t notice the no-hitter until Bako’s hit, but he had a twinkle in his eye when he said it.
“It’s just fun, especially beating the Phillies, winning the series and beating the ace,” said Jurrjens, who had yet to give up a hit when Cole Hamels was chased in the fifth inning. “That’s always fun when you beat the ace on the team. Hopefully tomorrow we can go at it again and score runs again.”
Javier Vazquez, 5-7 with a 3.04 ERA, could use some, too, if he’s to complete a three-game sweep against the Phillies.
The Braves moved to 5-2 against the Phillies this season and 2-0 at Turner Field, where the Phillies won all nine games last year.
In the process, the Braves pulled within three games of the Phillies’ National League East lead, which is now tenuous. The Marlins beat Washington to narrow their second-place deficit to a half-game behind the Phillies.
For three months of the season, the Braves have had trouble building momentum from one game to the next. Martin Prado started July with a better idea.
One game after being declared the Braves’ starting second baseman after a four-RBI night, Prado drove in two more on a double to stoke the Braves’ 14-hit onslaught.
Prado, Chipper Jones, Matt Diaz and Brian McCann all had multi-hit, multi-RBI games.
“We came ready to swing the bats tonight,” McCann said. “Cole is one of the better pitchers in the game. We got to him early. It was just a great all-around performance.”
Hamels lost for only the second time in his past 10 starts against Atlanta, and his relief didn’t help him any. Diaz hit a two-run homer on the fourth pitch from Tyler Walker. Diory Hernandez followed with his first major-league home run before the six-run inning came to a close.
Prado and Gregor Blanco proved to be catalysts at the top of the order again, scoring two runs apiece in the first five innings off Hamels. Prado finished 2-for-4 with a double and three runs scored.
“Batting in front of Chipper Jones means with men in scoring position, I’m going to see a lot of fastballs,” Prado said. “I’ve got to take advantage of that.”
The nine runs the Braves scored while Jurrjens was on the mound were four runs better than what they scored for him in all five of his June starts. Jurrjens had gone 0-4 in that time despite a 3.68 ERA.
He was at 97 pitches after seven innings and would have given manager Bobby Cox a tough call had Bako not gotten the hit.
“His last start he threw 114 [pitches],” Cox said. “To get the no-hitter, he would have been in the high 120s probably.
“It would have been interesting if I had to make that decision. The player’s arm comes first.”
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