Teheran learning from veteran batterymate

For those who see Gerald Laird as an offensive liability compared with Brian McCann or Evan Gattis and wonder why Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez makes a point of having the veteran Laird catch the rookie Julio Teheran, he has his reasons.

Monday night was a prime example of how such a relationship can benefit a young pitcher, when Teheran came within two outs of a shutout in a 5-1 win over the Twins. And one eighth inning at-bat was a microcosm.

Teheran had dominated the Twins by following Laird’s lead, but with Twins leadoff man Brian Dozier at the plate facing an 0-2 count, when Laird put down a sign for a sinker inside, Teheran shook him off.

Laird put the sign down again. Teheran shook him off again. Laird put the sign down a third time. Teheran finally gave in and threw the sinker inside for a ball. On the next pitch, Teheran got Dozier to fly out on a slider for the second out of a scoreless inning.

“Sometimes (young pitchers) go out there and think too much,” Laird said. “Sometimes I want them to just want to rely on me a little bit, and that was just one pitch I felt like we needed to make. When you make good pitches away and they go out over the plate and foul it off, you’ve got to stand guys up. You’ve got to be able to make a pitch inside. …

“We had a chance to waste a pitch. It was 0-2. I really felt strong about the sinker in right there, and then we could either go back down and away or go back inside. The main thing is he accepted it eventually and he made the pitch.”

Laird explained to Teheran in the dugout afterward why he wanted that pitch.

“That’s how you build trust,” Laird said.

After the game, Teheran is the one who brought the sequence up with the media, saying he had shaken off Laird only twice during the game. He said of the Dozier at-bat: “(Laird) got mad at me. I know sometimes I get confused, and he helped me a lot.”

Uggla's bigger bat: Dan Uggla switched to a bigger bat Monday and hit a three-run homer with it the first time up, but the Braves second baseman quashed the notion that it was done because of a theory of how the heavier lumber might help his swing.

“There was no theory,” Uggla said Tuesday. “It was ‘what the hell?’”

As in, he had gone 1-for-24 with 10 strikeouts in his previous seven games and was out of the lineup Sunday for the second time in four games. He just wanted to try something different. Shake things up.

He switched from his usual bat, which measures 33 1/2 inches and 30 1/2 ounces, to one 34 1/2 inches and 32 ounces. Uggla didn’t want to go into other details about the bat, but said he would use it again Tuesday.

The theory was that players sometimes switch to a heavier bat so they won’t try to swing so hard and instead let their hands and the bat do the work, not their arms. Veteran Braves broadcaster Joe Simpson, a former major leaguer, said players would sometimes switch to a heavier bat against hard-throwing pitchers.

“Yeah, theoretically,” Uggla said. “Unfortunately with me, I still try to swing hard. That’s why I’ve never been able to use a big bat. Chipper (Jones) always tried to get me to use a bigger bat, but I just couldn’t swing it. I’ve always been about bat speed.”

Jones used a 34-ounce bat most of the time, which by the end of his career was 2-3 ounces heavier than most of his teammates’. Until the past couple of decades, plenty of players used bats as big or bigger than the ones Jones swung.

“Nobody was throwing 100 (mph) back then, except for Nolan (Ryan),” Uggla said. “Ninety-two was hard. … (These days) everybody throws 95 and above. Then they’ve got six different pitches they’re throwing with it. …”

He laughed and added, “Whatever we’re teaching these pitchers as kids, we need to stop teaching it to them.”

Walden update: Jordan Walden played catch for the second consecutive day Tuesday and his shoulder continues to feel good, but Gonzalez said he doesn't expect him to be quite ready when he's eligible to come off the disabled list Monday. The Braves want Walden to throw a bullpen session and then get at least two appearances on a minor league rehabilitation assignment.

Walden threw from 150 feet Tuesday and said his shoulder continues to respond well. He expects to throw a bullpen session either Wednesday or shortly after the Braves leave for a five-game trip to New York and Toronto.

“It’s strong right now,” Walden said. “It was a lot better than almost all season.”

Walden said the shoulder flared up after his outing against the Nationals on May 2. He gave up five runs in 1 1/3 innings over his next three appearances before going on the DL.