It was another trip to Turner Field to see the Braves taking on the surprise contenders for the American League East Division, the Baltimore Orioles. The Braves went into this match looking for a sweep of the Orioles, and get their 5th win in the last six games as they try to pull themselves closer to the National League East leaders, the Washington Nationals.
It was a pretty wet day as it drizzled for the entire game, luckily there was no rain delays, and, despite a slew of injuries, the Braves went on to win with a comfortable score of 8-1, mainly due to John Smoltz’s pitching, Andrew Jones’ fielding and hitting and Rafael Furcal’s hitting also, but it was a great all-round team performance with everyone doing their part.
Smoltz was the undoubted star of the game though, he pitched the entire game, striking out 7 Orioles, this gave him him 2,487 career strikeouts, thus passing Don Drysdale for 27th place on the all-time list, while holding them to a single run (a Rafael Palmero solo homer in the 5th) and only 5 hits… He even managed to get an RBI double in his last at bat, so not a sloppy afternoon’s work for a guy who was a closer the last few years…
Despite the rain, it was still a pretty decent crowd that turned up, some even brought brooms in anticipation of the series sweep… This brought my overall record up to 7-3 (.700) (or *7-4 (.636)), things are looking up again.
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Here was the view from our seats, a pretty miserable grey sky with most of Atlanta hidden by clouds and rain, next up is the July 4th game against the Chicago Cubs…
