Must win weekend

The Braves lost to the Phillies last night 3-2. Rafael Soriano gave up a home run to Ryan Howard to lead off the ninth inning to break a 2-2 tie. In Soriano's last 10 games he has 2 blown saves and 2 losses with an ERA just under 9.00. It may be time to put Mike Gonzalez back into the closer role or to have a two-headed monster come out of the bullpen. Gonzalez has pitched well recently, including a scoreless 8th inning in Friday's game. He has not given up an earned run since July 9th, throwing 11 innings during that stretch. Anyways, Soriano's performance ruined a great outing by Jair Jurrjens. Jurrjens pitched 7 innings, giving up 2 runs on a Chase Utley homer, and striking out 6. The offense only got two runs on RBIs by Chipper Jones and Ryan Church. Game two of the series is this afternoon at 410p on FOX. Kenshin Kawakami will pitch for the Braves in what is a must-win game.

Atlanta is now 6 games behind the Phillies in the NL East and 1.5 games behind the second-place Marlins. The Braves really need to win these next two games to stay alive in the division race. Atlanta is 3.5 games behind Colorado in the wild card race.

Lance Lynn pitched last night for the Springfield Cardinals, but had trouble finding the strike zone. He threw 102 pitches over 4 2/3 innings, giving up 2 runs on 4 hits and striking out 4. The problem is that he walked 5 batters. He would have got the win if he would have pitched one more out, but in the minor leagues there is no reason to put more stress on the arm than is necessary. Lance is now 6th in the Texas League in ERA, 7th in strikeouts, and 10th in WHIP.

Tucker Barnhart was 0-for-5 yesterday for the GCL Reds. He batted second in the lineup and was the DH for the game. Barnhart is 1-for-13 with 3 strikeouts on the season. It may take him another week or so to get back on track after the delay from the MLB office on his contract.