Apparently the two days off Chipper Jones needed to alleviate some swelling in his surgically-repaired left knee were just to build a little anticipation.
The opportunistic veteran is not one to let a big moment pass, certainly not this week, and not this year, his last in a Braves uniform. So Jones celebrated his own personal home-opener Sunday with a three-run home run to set the tone for a 7-4 win over the Brewers.
“You want to make a splash,” said Jones, who received a standing ovation from 30,831 at Turner Field in his first trip to the plate and homered in his second. “It was a pretty cool moment. This year is going to be filled with a lot of moments, I hope. I’ve had two so far in three starts, which has been pretty cool, so I’m looking forward to the rest of the season.”
Jones had willed the 0-4 Braves to win in his first game back from the disabled list Tuesday in Houston, with two hits including a home run. They haven’t stopped winning since, using a weekend sweep of the defending NL Central champs to move to 5-4 on the season.
Now the Braves will see how they stack up with a little momentum in another three-game series against the Mets, the team that swept them in New York to start the season.
“Granted we didn’t see (the Brewers’) top two starters,” Jones said. “But still, they’re a really good major league team, a playoff team from last year, and we did a lot of good things in this series that we didn’t in New York. It’s got to translate over to start winning some games in our division.”
Starting pitching is now giving the Braves reason to believe that it will. Brandon Beachy followed Mike Minor with a dominant pitching performance of his own and worked deep into the game as well. Minor threw a career-high 7 1/3 innings, allowing one unearned run, on Saturday night. Then Beachy pitched seven innings Sunday – a plateau he’d only reached twice before in the majors – allowing only one unearned run.
“Watching him do that yesterday, I can’t let him make us all look bad,” said Beachy, who had watched Minor’s outing from home Saturday night, sent to rest up for his afternoon start on Sunday. “Got to try to keep up.”
The veteran who sits three lockers to his left loves it.
“It’s good if they push each other,” Jones said of Beachy and Minor. “I saw three guys here for a long time push each other.”
The days of Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz seemed distant as the Braves started the season, getting no more than five innings from a starter through the first seven games. But that’s changed the past two days, and on Sunday, it allowed manager Fredi Gonzalez to rest both Jonny Venters and Craig Kimbrel.
Chad Durbin gave up three runs in the ninth, including his third home run in three outings as a Brave, but the 7-1 lead he inherited was cushion enough.
Beachy struggled to go deep into games all last season, usually getting bogged down in one big inning. After he’d thrown 57 pitches through the first three innings Sunday, it looked like he was headed for another short outing. But Beachy needed only 14 pitches in the fourth, eight in the fifth, nine in the sixth and 15 in the seventh, while retiring 11 of 12 batters he faced, to finish seven with 103 pitches.
“It’s definitely a step in the right direction of where I want to be,” said Beachy, now 1-1 with a 0.75 ERA on the season.
He gave up four runs in his first game against the Astros, but only one was earned. His unearned run Sunday came after a Martin Prado error in left field in the second inning. But Beachy drew a leadoff walk of his own in the third inning, Prado redeemed himself with a double and Jones drove them all in on a shot to left field.
Jones is hitting 5-for-12 (.417) with two home runs in three games since his return from knee surgery and now has 456 home runs for his career. Jason Heyward got in on the act with a 392-foot homer down the right field line in the fourth.
Jones ambushed Chris Narveson on the first pitch he saw in the third inning, a hanging curveball, and brought home a little of the mojo he showed in Houston. In his first game back Tuesday, he singled in his first at-bat, and homered in his second. This time, though, he had more than his parents, teammates and scattered Braves fans at Minute Maid Park to cheer him on.
“Just running around the bases I was thinking to myself, ‘Man, this is pretty awesome,’” Jones said. “And coming back and getting the reception from my teammates and obviously the fans is really special.”
