Minor Masterpiece!

Hello again everyone from outside the Motor City. Since it’s now officially summer, I can start to brag on how nice the summers are up here. Usually. Not so much yet, but like the Braves’ offense, I know it’s coming soon!

Speaking of bragging, though, I’d like to brag on the job Mike Minor did tonight. After a bit of a shaky start, he settled down nicely, allowing only one run on five hits in seven innings, fanning a season high eight batters along the way. Sweet!

As I said earlier, I think Minor will do just fine. It’s looked to me like confidence was the main thing he’s been missing, and it’s seemed to me that he’s gradually become more confident each start. It seems, similarly to Tom Glavine, that he actually struggles more against left handed hitters than right. That’s obviously due to the reluctance to throw the change up to left handers. It seems that even that obstacle is slowly fading.

Tonight was cause for optimism on the offensive front as well, as the team reached double digits in hits for the first time in recent memory. And Brian McCann went deep again, number 12 for him. Though most of the damage came off the young Toronto starter, I’m not going to discount that too much, as the team is not noted for doing well against pitchers the first time they face them, even when things are going well.

Let’s all take a deep breath and celebrate a nice win that’s punctuated with good efforts on both sides of the equation. And the team also got it’s heart and soul, and a darn good bat, back in the form of Chipper Jones.