We didn't see the ace dominance of Tommy Hanson last night, but we did see an ace's ability to work through trouble and get big strikeouts without his best stuff or command. Hanson struggled with location all night, walking 5 and allowing 9 hits, but some crafty pitching allowed him to escape all those baserunners while only allowing 2 runs en route to his first major league victory.
The bullpen came on for the final 10 outs and held the Orioles scoreless the rest of the way.
Yunel Escobar added the early offense with a 2-run homerun in the first inning. Brian McCann went 4-for-4, including a pair of run-scoring singles. Everyone in the lineup got a hit except for the struggling Kelly Johnson (now just 6-for-his-last-41) and the surprising recent struggle of Chipper Jones (0-for-his-last-12). Chipper's struggles are surprising because they come one the heels of an 8-for-13 stretch -- but that's baseball, sometimes the ball drops for you, sometimes it doesn't.
This is the kind of game the Braves should be playing -- ample offense to go along with good-to-great pitching.