Me got blisters on me fingers!!!

The Braves finally took a game from the Brewers on Thursday afternoon, winning by a score of 8-1. Jorge Campillo pitched five innings, giving up one earned run before his blister problems caused him to exit the game. He may miss his next start in the rotation. Campillo also has two RBI in the game. Mark Teixeira had a home run and 4 RBI. Yunel Escobar had 3 hits. Chipper Jones was 2 for 4 with 2 walks to continue his torrid first two months of the season. The Braves travel to Cincinnati for a three-game weekend series starting today. Tom Glavine pitches for the Braves and NL ERA leader Edinson Volquez pitches for the Reds.

The NCAA Softball world series started with a bang yesterday as #1 seed Florida lost to UL-Lafayette 3-2 in 8 innings. Also, #3 seed Alabama was beaten by #6 seed Arizona State with 3 runs in the top of the seventh. #5 seed Arizona State and #2 seed UCLA both won their games. Tonight, the winners of Thursday's games play. On Saturday, four teams will be eliminated from the tourney.

Grrrrrrrrrr

I know you have heard this before, but the Braves lost another one-run game last night. Blaine Boyer gave up a triple to Rickie Weeks that scored JJ Hardy for the only run of the game. Jo Jo Reyes pitched 7 innings and was charged with the run. Reyes struck out 9 in what was his best performance of his career so far. Chipper Jones got on base 3 times in the game, he was 1-2 with 2 walks. His league-leading average is now .418. The two teams complete the series this afternoon at 105pm. Jorge Campillo will try to continue his great starting pitching for the Braves. Seth McClung will throw for the Brewers.

So far the Braves have played 53 games and are 2-14 in one-run contests. They are also a horrible 6-18 on the road. They are still 2.5 games behind the Marlins in the NL East and 2.5 games behind the Cardinals for the wild card. The Braves luck factor is still -4, which means they should be 32-21 instead of 28-25 according to the runs scored/runs given up ratio. Hopefully, with the return of Rafael Soriano today and the pending return of John Smoltz (who pitches for Class A Rome tonight) within the next month or so, we should be able to get back on track. If not, it may be a long and frustrating summer.

So close, yet so far away

The Braves lost a tough game to the Brewers last night, 3-2. The Braves led 2-0 through six innings, but gave up single runs in the 7th, 8th, and 9th innings. Tim Hudson threw 8 strong innings only giving up 2 runs and striking out 6 batters. Jeff Bennett came on in relief of Hudson, but could not hold the Brewers. Bennett is now 0-3 for the season. Chipper Jones had two hits for the Braves, raising his average to .418. Kelly Johnson extended his hitting streak to 13 games. Matt Diaz strained his knee in the 7th inning and left the game. Omar Infante took Diaz's place in the outfield for the remainder of the game. The two teams play again tonight at 805pm. Jo Jo Reyes pitches for the Braves. Jeff Suppan will pitch for Milwaukee.

I was 5 of 8 on my NCAA softball super regional picks. My top 4 picks were correct, but I only got one of the last four right. My confidence score was 77.8%. Not too bad, but not too good either. The softball world series starts on Thursday and here are my picks:

Champion - Florida
Runner-Up - Alabama
Final four - Texas A&M and Arizona St.
Win one game - Virginia Tech and UCLA
Two losses and out - Louisiana-Lafayette and Arizona


The NCAA Baseball regionals also start this weekend. Miami(FL) is the overall number one seed. Here are my predictions, in order of confidence.

#2 NC over Elon
#1 Miami (FL) over Missouri
#4 Florida St over Florida
#3 Arizona St over Vanderbilt
#7 LSU over Southern Miss
Texas A&M over Houston
#5 CS Fullerton over UCLA
#6 Rice over Texas
Oklahoma St over TCU
Nebraska over UC Irvine
South Carolina over NC State (upset)
Arizona over Kentucky
Pepperdine over Stanford (upset)
#8 Georgia over Georgia Tech
Long Beach State over San Diego
East Carolina over Coastal Carolina (upset)

A good win and an extremely disappointing loss

The Braves jumped on Arizona ace Brandon Webb early to beat the Diamondbacks 7-3. They scored 5 runs in the first two innings led by Mark Teixeira's 4 RBI. Gregor Blanco had three hits in the game. Texieira and Yunel Escobar contributed two hits each to the effort. Jair Jurrjens pitched 4 2/3 innings giving up the 3 runs. Jeff Bennett, Manny Acosta, and Blaine Boyer completed the game. Acosta threw two shutout innings to get the win. Brian McCann had a home run to extend his hitting streak to 13 games. Kelly Johnson extended his hitting streak to 12 games. Atlanta is 7-3 in its last 10 games, but have failed to gain any ground on the streaking Marlins. The Braves are still 2.5 games behind the Fish in the NL East. They are 1.5 games behind the St Louis Cardinals for the wild card spot. The Braves start a 3 game series at Milwaukee today at 805pm. Tim Hudson will pitch for the Atlanta while Dave Bush will throw for the Brewers.

Another Brownsburg baseball season came to a disappointing end as the Bulldogs were beaten by Avon 7-3 in the first round of sectional play. Avon's Rob McPike beat the Dogs on the mound in the tournament for the second year in a row. Avon scored 6 runs in the first inning capped by a 3-run homer by Logan Sanburn. It is the second year in a row that Brownsburg has lost in the first game of the sectional and the third year in a row they have failed to get past the sectional round. Senior Mark Conover took the loss and was 7-3 on the season. Senior Jake Houston hit a two-run homer in his farewell game. Sometime in the next week or so, I will write a season wrap-up and look forward to the next season of Brownsburg baseball.

Great Day for Dixon

Scott Dixon won the Indy 500 on a beautiful day at the track. The sun was shining, it was 80 degrees, there was a little wind to keep things from getting too hot. The crowd was great, as usual. It was a fun trip to the track.

The Braves got beat by the Diamondbacks 9-3. The offense sputtered horribly. Tom Glavine gave up 6 runs in less than 5 innings. The bullpen gave up the other three runs in 4 innings. Just a bad day overall for the Braves. Let's see if they can even the series today against the D-Backs. Game time is 105p. Jair Jurrjens pitches for the Braves. The D-backs send their ace, Brandon Webb to the mound.

A Moment Like This

The Braves beat the Diamondbacks yesterday 3-1 on a two-run walk off home run by Jeff Francoeur in the bottom of the ninth. Jorge Campillo started the game and pitched four scoreless innings before a blister on his finger sidelined him for the rest of the game. Campillo's ERA is now 0.86. Jeff Bennett relieved Campillo and gave up one run in 3 innings. Will Ohman and Blaine Boyer finished the game with scoreless relief. Boyer got the win and is 1-3 on the season. Francoeur had two hits and 2 RBI. Chipper Jones was 2-4, raising his average to .417. The two teams play at 135pm today.

I will be attending the Indy 500 this afternoon. I think that Scott Dixon or Dan Wheldon should prevail as they have been the fastest cars the entire month of May. Of course, it's going to be 80 degrees and sunny, weather the cars have not see yet this month so it will be interesting to see how the pit crews can react to weather they have not see with these cars on this track.