Hinske shines with bat, glove in Braves win

"That saved the game," Braves manager Bobby Cox said of Hinske's leaping grab and double play. "It was a game-saver. They hit that ball awfully hard.

"[Hinske] has been our main guy lately. He's been a huge spark for the offense."

This time he also provided a defensive spark, on a night when the teams combined to go 1-for-19 with runners in scoring position and strand 24 runners.

With their 10th win in 12 games, the second-place Braves trimmed Philadelphia's lead to 3 1/2 games in the National League East and moved to 1 1/2 games ahead of third-place Florida.

The Braves (23-20) have won 15 of 21 since a nine-game losing streak. They are three over .500 for only the second time, the other back when they were 8-5.

"There's a whole lot of season left, we all know that," said Hinske, who's hit .441 with 10 RBIs in his past 10 games. "Our team attitude is win today. Don't look at the standings, don't look at anything else, just worry about yourself and win today. And when the end of September comes, we'll see what's up."

"We're just trying to win, that's what it boils down to," Hinske said. "It was a good day to get Troy a day off, with the day game tomorrow and a lefty throwing [Zach Duke starts the series finale for Pittsburgh]. Give Troy a little rest. So I go over the first, Melky hits a big home run, then I end up getting one.

"Things are working out right now. We've just got to try to keep rolling with this momentum. We come in here and get a couple of wins, now we can try to win all three. Come out here ready to play tomorrow."

"He hit a line drive and I jumped," Hinske said. "I wasn't sure if I was going to catch it. It went in my glove and I looked at McCutchen right away. I knew to run to first right away. I thought I was going to be able to stand up, but he's faster than me, obviously.  So I laid out and dove, and it was pretty cool.

"It was a good play, kept the runner there, then we got two outs. D-Lowe was excited. He gave me a fist-pump on the mound, then he went and punched the next guy out."

"That's bad luck on their part, good luck on ours," Lowe said. "Line drive gets down the line and who knows what happens? But we'll take it. Bullpen did a tremendous job. Probably not stating anything you guys don't know.

"It seemed liked they stranded 10, 12 baserunners. We were able to minimize the damage when we had to. That was very important."

Cox said, "There were about 25 guys left on base between the two teams. You'd have to say there was some clutch pitching, all night long on both sides. It was, as we would say in Oklahoma, plum hard to get through that one."

The former Braves prospect threw 51 pitches in the first two innings, yet Morton ended up sticking around longer than Lowe. Morton faced the minimum nine batters in the fourth through sixth innings before being lifted.

He was charged with three runs (two earned) and six hits in six innings, the third quality start in four for Morton, who lowered his unsightly ERA from 9.68 to 8.71.

Lowe threw 99 pitches in five innings and gave up two runs, five hits and four walks. He's 8-0 with a 2.98 career ERA against the Pirates, and had  lasted at least six innings in the previous seven.

Lowe already has six wins this season despite a 5.30 ERA. Billy Wagner pitched the ninth inning and got his fifth save.

He had one homer in 106 at-bats during his half-season with the Pirates.

"I didn't play terrible when I was here," he said. "I just didn't get an opportunity to play much. In three months I had probably 90 at-bats, and a lot of pinch hits and stuff. No hard feelings to them. They treated me really well."

The Braves lead the NL with 114 runs in May, after they ranked 14th in scoring (85 runs) and last in batting average (.227) during April.