Tomahawk Chops: Daily Atlanta Braves News Clippings For Tuesday, May Day

Your one-page daily morning overview of Atlanta Braves news:

Pittsburgh Pirates at Atlanta Braves - April 30, 2012 | MLB.com ATL Recap
"They showed if I don't make good pitches what happens to me," Minor said. "Tonight, I didn't really have command of any pitches. I had a lot of strikeouts. But, I don't really have an explanation of why. I was just really inconsistent."

Braves postgame quotes after Monday loss to Pirates | AJC Braves
Fredi Gonzalez, on Minor missing his spots: "Yeah I think his command got a little bit erratic there and for me he couldn’t get any of his stuff over the plate and he had to come back over the plate and they capitalized on that. But he’s been so good, he’s allowed to have one of these outings. I thought we had McDonald on the ropes a couple times and then he started throwing that curveball over for a strike and got us off-balance a little bit. We hit some balls hard, even until the end there. I thought Bourn’s ball had a chance to hit off the wall and they caught it. Series over, 2-2, you would have liked to have won the series. Now we go on to the Phillies."

Braves fall to Pirates, split series | AJC Braves
The Pirates, who were averaging a majors’-worst 2.33 runs per game, snapped a streak of 21 games with five or fewer runs, the longest such streak to open a season since the Brewers did it for 31 straight in 1972.

Heyward rests with soreness near oblique | braves.com: News
"With those things, I didn't want to mess with it," Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said while explaining why Heyward was not in the starting lineup for Monday night's series finale against the Pirates. Heyward is hoping to return to the Braves' lineup by Wednesday. He played the entirety of Sunday's win over the Pirates without any problem. But he awoke on Monday morning feeling some discomfort in his right side.

Heyward sits with oblique soreness, considers it minor | AJC Braves
Heyward missed three weeks with an oblique strain in the minor leagues in 2009. He said the fact that he couldn’t pinpoint when it happened in the Sunday’s game, that he simply woke up feeling sore, tells him it’s not as serious. "That was a completely different feeling," Heyward said of the 2009 injury. "It was already cramping up, and it was tight. This is a lot better. There’s no knot. Not even tight, it’s just sore….I don’t know exactly what did it but it doesn’t feel terrible."

Jurrjens takes positive step at Gwinnett | braves.com: News
"He did some things good," Braves assistant general manager Bruce Manno said. "It's a process. But it's encouraging to see him go out and do well and work on some things. He's accepted it really well. That's a big part of it, when somebody embraces it and realizes that 'I've got to work at this and make some adjustments.'"

Billy Wagner coaching at The Miller School in Charlottesville, Va. | TriCities.com
“Teach the kids the fundamentals, help with their baseball IQ,” he said. “I really enjoy it at this level. I don’t necessarily coach to win, I try to use winning as a process.”