These short takes are an adjunct to the column off Game 2 of the Braves-Dodgers series -- the Braves won 4-3, in case you haven't heard -- that is available on myajc.com, our premium site.

1. Mike Minor took a giant step forward. Working his first playoff game, the Braves' starting pitcher outdid Zack Greinke on a night when Greinke was very good himself. The Dodgers scored a first-inning run on Hanley Ramirez's double to right, but that was all they'd get off Minor, who induced double plays in the second and the third and struck out Adrian Gonzalez and Juan Uribe to escape the sixth with a one-run lead. "He's maturing as a pitcher," Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said of Minor. "I thought he was terrific."

2. Don Mattingly walked Reed Johnson to pitch to Jason Heyward with the bases loaded in the seventh inning. Bad move. It set up the lefty-against-lefty matchup -- Paco Rodriguez versus Heyward -- but still: Johnson hadn't had a hit since July 28 and had missed most of the final two months of the regular season with a sore ankle. And these are, not to put too fine a point on it, the sort of moments in which Heyward delivers. He lined a two-run single up the middle, and those two runs made the difference between this series being tied and the Dodgers leading 2-0.

3. Fredi Gonzalez, who has been criticized for not using Craig Kimbrel in innings other than the ninth, summoned the great closer in the eighth. Even then, you wondered if the Braves had waited too long. David Carpenter had yielded a walk to Mark Ellis and a two-run homer to Ramirez -- that guy can hit -- but steadied to strike out Adrian Gonzalez and Yasiel Puig. Whereupon Fredi Gonzalez made the call for Kimbrel, who worked a four-out save, albeit aided and abetted mightily when Gerald Laird, who was catching only because Brian McCann had been lifted for a pinch-runner, threw out Dee Gordon, who was trying to steal second with one out in the ninth.

From myajc.com: Minor wins a Game 2 of major importance.