Talking Chop

It was a lovely day at the Great American Ballpark -- sunny with a nice breeze -- made even better by early and sustained offense from the Braves and some great pitching by Derek Lowe. It was great to see the team get on the board quickly in the first, again with patience and plenty of walks from the Reds pitcher.

Chipper Jones cranked a three-run homerun in the second to give the Braves all the offense they would need. Yunel Escobar added a homerun in the sixth after having been hit the inning before. Tensions were high after Escobar somewhat overreacted to being hit by a pitch yesterday, causing both dugouts to empty. Derek Lowe easily registered two outs in the first before plunking Joey Votto with the first pitch. That caused an immediate warning to both teams.

Jerry Hariston Jr. got ejected for arguing balls and strikes along with Dusty Baker, who took his sweet old time coming to Hairston's aid -- he is totally the worst manager in baseball. I have no idea why people keep hiring him.

The star pitching performance of the night goes to Derek Lowe. With a runner on second and no outs in the fifth inning, the Reds pitcher bunted to try to advance him to third. It was a bad bunt and David Ross threw to third as the lead runner was hung up. During the rundown Yunel Escobar threw a bit too late to Chipper at third and the runner was safe with the pitcher advancing to second. A missed play and now there were two runners in scoring position with no one out. Lowe proceeded to strike out the next three batters. It was pretty awesome, and the Reds fans were shouting some pretty violent obsenities towards their hitters.

I'll have a review of the GAB at a later time, but I must say I really liked the park. It didn't hurt that it was such a nice day. I did eat my body weight in SkyLine Chili Coney Dogs -- OMG I'm totally opening up a franchise in Atlanta.