Game 43 Recap: Braves 10, Blue Jays 2

Wow, what a way to cap off the homestand, as the Atlanta Braves complete the Interleague sweep, against the American League's best, defeating the Toronto Blue Jays, by a final score of 10-2.

The Braves struck early, capitalizing on Scott Richmond's supposed vulnerability to left-handed batting, as Kelly Johnson and Brian McCann each hit solo home runs to give Atlanta the early lead.  Jair Jurrjens started the game strong, but in one awkward at-bat in the bottom of the fifth supposedly became his undoing, as he noticeably came up wincing after a mighty whiff.  Although he lost the lead in the 6th inning, he still ended his outing with a definition quality start.

The 7th inning was the story of the game, where in the top of it, the Blue Jays threatened to take the lead when they managed to get the bases loaded on Peter Moylan via a single, hit batsmen, and a walk.  Eric O'Flaherty and Jeff Bennett combined to get the final two outs of the inning with some huge clutch pitching, and strand all three Toronto base runners.

And in the bottom of the inning, the bottom of the order got the job done when Jeff Francoeur singled, Diory Hernandez collected his first-ever major league hit, and Jordan Schafer nursed a walk.  Bobby Cox had the luxury of having the ailing Chipper Jones come in to pinch-hit, in which he delivered magnificently, lacing a screamer off of Toronto first baseman, Lyle Overbay's glove, scoring one run, before Kelly Johnson ground-rule doubled to bring in two more runs, and Garret Anderson contributed to the party by hitting a sac-fly to bring Chipper home.  The highlight would be however Brian McCann putting the exclamation point on the inning, by crushing his second home run of the afternoon, a mammoth three-run blast that put the game well out of reach.*

The sweep of the Blue Jays completes a successful homestand, and great weekend of baseball for Braves fans, as they were privy to witness great starting pitching stifle a high-powered offense all weekend, and a streaky offense get their act together when it really counted.  Next on the agenda for the Atlanta Braves is a trip out west, starting tomorrow as they go to San Francisco to take on the Giants.

*For those who are not local, an interesting tidbit would be a promotion run by the Golden Moon Casino, which is the chief sponsor of Turner Field's luxury suites; for the last two years they have been running this promotion called the "Lucky Sevens Inning," where if the Braves could hang seven runs in the inning, an ever-growing pot would be the prize for the contestant for the day.  Well, McCann's homer made seven, and someone in the state of Georgia won something around $11,000 dollars.