The Braves were in for a breath of fresh air Tuesday night, with Tim Hudson on the mound and no Yankee, Red Sox, Oriole, or designated hitter of any kind in sight.
The Braves settled back into National League play and a sense of normalcy with an 8-1 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks to open a 10-game homestand, their longest of the year.
The Braves had the better, or at least the healthier Hudson, on the mound and took advantage with eight dominant innings from their veteran sinkerballer. Tim Hudson allowed only one run on a Jason Kubel homer despite working on a sore left ankle, while Arizona's Daniel Hudson had to leave the game with elbow soreness in the second inning. He's scheduled for an MRI Wednesday.
The Braves piled up double-digit hits for the fifth straight game, matching their season-high for a nine-inning game with 17, and this time they had the starter on the mound to take full advantage. The Braves scored five runs in the first two innings to give Hudson the kind of lead he knows what to do with; he moved to 148-5 for his career when his team gives him four or more runs of support.
"I think any pitcher if you're given a four-run lead, if you can't make that hold up, you really haven't done your job," said Hudson, now 6-3 with a 3.58 ERA. "You don't want to go out there and let the floodgates open by any means, but you can be aggressive in the strike zone and try to make them earn their way to score."
The three add-on runs in the seventh and eighth innings just filled out the boxscore. The Braves had seven players with two or more hits, led by Chipper Jones with his first three-hit game since back-to-back three-hit games May 4 and 5 in Colorado. Freddie Freeman went 3-for-5 with a double and two RBIs. Michael Bourn had two hits including his seventh home runs on the season, two more than his previous career-high of five in 2008 for the Astros.
Freshly-named NL player of the week Jason Heyward went 2-for-4 with a sacrifice fly to extend his career-best hitting streak to 11 games, after manager Fredi Gonzalez moved him up into the No. 2 hole.
Jones had been 7-for-37 in 10 games since coming off the disabled list with a severely bruised ankle.
"I really lost a lot of momentum with that injury," Jones said. "I was feeling good at the plate, swinging the bat good from both sides of the plate and just lost it. I'm just now starting to get back where I'm centering balls on both sides of the plate, to all fields. That's a good feeling."
His double started a string of three straight hits in the second inning to help build the five-run cushion for Hudson. From that point on, he settled in and threw strikes. After using 41 pitches to get through the first two innings, Hudson needed only 30 over the next four innings.
"I thought Huddy was awesome after the second inning," Jones said. "You want your big guns to go six, seven, eighth innings and it didn't look like he was going to be able to make it, but he made adjustments and got double plays when he needed them. The offense was on point tonight which was nice to see -- 17 hits, I'll take that any day."
Hudson had 101 pitches after eight innings, including 77 for strikes, but given his ankle issue, Gonzalez went with Anthony Varvaro in the ninth.
"I talked to Huddy about it," Gonzalez said. "I said 'Huddy, I'm not all too excited about you getting a complete game here. What do you feel?' He said 'Whatever you want to do.' He had those bone spurs and threw 101 pitches. He had enough. Plus we don't have any days we can bump him (before the All-Star break). It was a good time to get him out."
The Braves have won four of Hudson's five starts since his bone spurs flared up before his May 30 start against St. Louis. The discomfort on his landing leg might be costing him a couple of mph on his two-seam fastball, but the Diamondbacks still couldn't muster much because of its movement. He allowed only seven hits, walked one and struck out seven.
"I think my offspeed pitches might have benefitted a little bit from my ankle being a little bit sore, but I think my fastball has definitely suffered a little bit," said Hudson, who is less likely to overthrow his offspeed pitches. "I can reach back and get some every now and again, but there's a lot of 87s out there. But it might be located a little better than it normally is because I know I can't throw 87 by big league hitters."
