Braves come up with a series win in a very big way. They scored four runs last night and twelve today, with the Pads only scoring a total of five runs in the last two games (eight for the entire series). If we stay hot like that offensively and can get everyone healthy for the second half, we would be in good shape. Too bad I’m not counting on us playing that well the rest of the season. I hope we do, but I won’t hold my breath. Everyone is going to go through some slumps now and then and have bad games, that’s just how it is. Chipper and Mac will probably be out and about in New York tomorrow with the All-Star festivities starting. While I won’t be here to provide coverage for it, I’m sure Lauren of Braves Love will be on top of it like she currently is on most of the goings-on in the Braves world. I hope to hear (and see) good things about the two Braves’ sluggers when I return on Saturday, or hopefully before then if I’m able to get Internet access any this week. I wish Brian and Chipper both good luck in Tuesday’s All-Star game.

Today is a much-need needed off day for the Bravos and I thought I would make a little update. I’m sorry for the lack of posting lately, but I’ve been lazy and haven’t felt well at all. My sinuses are still bothering me, which is year-round just about, and I’ve started an online class for school this week. Hopefully things will get better because I won’t need to be as lazy now that I have a class to take and pay attention to most days of the week. These late night games have kind of put me off a little as well. Plus, my Internet is still a bit wonky and keeps going in and out for some reason and losing signal. I’m not sure why. We might switch soon, but I’m not completely sure if we will or not yet.

As it has been announced, Chipper will indeed be the starting third baseman in this year’s All-Star game, and deservedly so. Mac will be one of the backups to Geovanny Soto, along with Russell Martin. Here’s one of the stories from SI.com on the whole NL catcher’s deal:

This is my review of the day game in Atlanta on June 25, 2008. It was good trip, it was a very, very hot that day, and we played a good game. I got decent footage and pictures below. The footage is a little shaky and I apologize for that. That would be from me not being able to hold my camera still hardly at all. I can’t sit or stand still, so that’s probably why. The footage was clearer on my computer before I uploaded it to photobucket, so know that it wasn’t my camera. The only bad thing about that day was that it felt like it was 100 degrees, literally, with no shade hardly at all and the seat digging into my leg the whole time, resulting in my leg becoming almost numb when I did finally get up around the 8th inning. I’ll save the rest for the review. The review is under a cut for length purposes.

Tonight kicks off a very crucial series in that we play the first place Phillies for three games. The Phillies have not had a great go at it lately, so this could be our chance to gain some ground on them. Will we sweep them? I doubt it, but it’s nice to think about. The Phillies can always find ways to knock the Braves around, no matter how bad the Phillies are playing. Sometimes we even help them do it, too, and that’s the sad part. I know half of our bench/team is out of commission right now, but hopefully we’ll get relief from somewhere. If we have good pitching and our offense is clicking on all cylinders, then we should have a pretty good chance. But since this isn’t always the case, we’ll just have to cross our fingers and hope for the best. Tonight Charlie Morton faces Kyle Kendrick in what should be a decent match-up.

I wasn’t going to post at all until I finished my review post of the game I went to, which I’m still working on, but since I received this in my inbox today reminding me that Mac still needs more votes to go to the All-Star game with only two days to vote, I thought I would post it. It’s way too cute not to post.

But joking aside, Charlie Morton needs to come out and pitch better than Jo-Jo did last night. And our offense needs to come back to life. Tonight it’s Charlie Morton facing Dave Bush, who beat us last time we saw him in yet another one-run game. Can we please do well tonight and tomorrow?

While the first game of the Mariners’ series looked like it was going to result in a sweep by the worst team in baseball, we came back and won the last two in great fashion. Teixshy seems like he’s gaining confidence at the plate and all us fans really hope he is coming out of his long slump. We knew he started off slow, but we weren’t thinking it was going to end up being this slow. If he heats up, maybe he can make up for the absence of Chipper in the lineup and keep us going in a good direction.

Tonight we start a six game homestand against the Seattle Mariners, who seemingly have it worse than we do right now, as they are 8.5 games back in the AL West. They just recently took the Mets lead and fired their manager, John McLaren, this week. Erik Bedard, who was supposedly the trade of the off season, behind the Johan Santana deal, hasn’t quite panned out to be the ace that the Mariners thought he might be for their club with a 4.15 ERA and 4-4 record. But while they’re in the midst of their own troubles, we have our own to worry about…still.

While I won’t do this a lot, I kinda got the idea for this from Lauren at Braves Love, since she’s known for her frequent photo analysis and gay lumberjack posts. My photo analysis posts will probably not be half as entertaining and funny as Lauren’s, but I thought I’d try something different on here. I thought I’d post this anyway because it seemed somewhat funny to me when I saw it last night.

I wasn’t planning on posting today, but DOB’s blog changed my mind. First, we’ll look at some quotes that I’m referring to:

I feel like we’re watching those Now What? commercials about insurance, where something is always going great then something bad happens in the end. While those are just commercials and made up segments of companies trying to sell insurance, we keep living in this Now What? funk that we have been in for a while. Will it get better? Who knows? If this is how we keep playing, then I think we should come up with a new motto for the remainder of the season. See the video below.

So, now we have Glavine back on the DL with a left elbow strain, which is what caused his early exit in last night’s terrible excuse of a game. But to add to that, Jurrjens might be headed to the same M*A*S*H unit that is known as the Braves DL. Apparently, Jurrjens twisted his ankle while walking down the Cubs’ dugout steps after the game on his way to the clubhouse. I swear this team is cursed. Like KJ said before in his shirtless interview, it’s like they all have voodoo dolls or something. That’s the only thing I caught that he said the entire interview, so if he didn’t say that, then he should have. Now who is the one sticking the pins in the players? We should really find out and soon.

This is a short post because I have to get to class a little early to study for finals. But can we please just do well tonight and this series? And on this whole roadtrip? We’re not asking for much. A few wins here and there wouldn’t hurt. We’re facing the best team in baseball record-wise, so we have to be playing smart baseball tonight. Can we please score more than a total of five runs? Please. Us fans will appreciate it very much. Glavine vs. Ted Lilly at 8:00 pm EST. Let’s get a win tonight…for once.

Well, this past weekend was horrendous and we were at home nonetheless. But that’s what happens when you have to overuse the bullpen early in just about every game and the season overall. Something has to be done. I don’t know what, but something has to be done. I know the Phillies are red hot right now, but they didn’t over-match us really. We gave the games up by not being able to capitalize when guys were on base or in key situations, like the latter innings of all three games. Can we please just do well on this roadtrip? I know we hate June, well I think it’s the other way around, but still. Can we still not suck on this roadtrip?

I didn’t get to see the entire game last night because I was dog sitting and the people didn’t have the channel out at their house. My friend and my mom were telling me what was happening, though, but I still didn’t get the full effect of it. I didn’t see the botched play by KJ, and I know everyone wants to blame the loss on him, but he’s not the only one that should take the blame.

Smoltz will undergo season-ending surgery on his right shoulder. A press conference was held at 11:30 am today and he has said that while he hopes this isn’t the end of his career, he’s not really sure what will happen in the future. This is the last year on his contract and after this season he will be a free agent. I’m sure the Braves will renew his contract for another year if he thinks he is able to pitch again, but who really knows at this point? Smoltz says that he would love to be able to come back and pitch again, but he realizes this could be it. Let’s all hope the best for Smoltzie and hope that the surgery goes well with a successful recovery.

I’ve already mentioned the All-Star game one time, but Mac really deserves to go this year with the way his first half is going. I know that Chicago fans are voting like mad for their catcher Soto, who is also having a great year as well, but Mac has been to the past two All-Star games as a reserve and he deserves to be rewarded per se for his major improvement from last year, which was plagued by injuries but he won’t use those injuries as an excuse because he’s good like that. Mac is only down by 202,717, which isn’t not a low margin, but not unreachable either. With his All-Star thing, you can vote 25 times with one e-mail and then when that runs out, use another e-mail or make a free one solely for this. Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, wherever, just vote for Mac; he deserves it and fans shouldbust their butts to get him there. This fansite has the right idea: McCann YOU Dig It? I plan on making a bigger All-Star banner for this, so expect to see that soon and vote for Mac however many times you can.

Normally, I don’t make girl-y posts on here, and I’m sure this one won’t be the last since I am, in fact, a girl and do have my moments at times. I’ll be honest and admit it. Today we have a video of KJ being interviewed on Braves Live after the game yesterday. With my girl-y, fan girl intuition kicking in, I really have no clue what he’s even saying or the questions being asked, nor do I really and truly care. The deer-caught-in-headlights look in his eyes, his breathy expressions of disappointment, and his shirtless, freshly showered self has me completely unfocused on the topic at hand. I’ll be honest and admit it.

Yesterday was a horrible loss and a one-run loss at that, making that 20-straight one-run losses on the road. We haven’t won a game in extra-innings this year either. Hopefully Huddy can go out today and get a win against rookie Johnny Cueto and stop our road woes from deepening even further.

I’m actually writing this post the previous night before the first game of the series with the Reds since it’s my day to sleep in, but I did want to get a post in at least since I wasn’t able to post today. Maybe I shouldn’t make a post, though, because they actually figured out how to win again. Good thing that I’m not superstitious.

We really need to figure out what we’re doing on the road, because whatever it is, we need to remedy it now. You can’t stay in the race with the road woes we currently and continue to have. It’s obvious Bobby didn’t want to send anyone but Huddy out last night in the late innings, but of course, the Brewers found some way to overcome our lowly two runs. It’s going to catch up with us sooner or later in the season. I hope we find out a way to overcome these road woes or we might as well kiss October goodbye for the third straight year. You can’t win the division playing this badly on every single road trip. It just won’t happen. Let’s hope with Oh-no, Jo-Jo pitching tonight that we can pull out a win.

The title is kind of dumb, but whatever works. I’m making this post short because I have a test in my next class. I need to study and work on the chapter work as well.