The Atlanta Braves had four players named to the All-Star team on Sunday: pitchers Jair Jurrjens and Jonny Venters, catcher Brian McCann, and third baseman Chipper Jones. Many fans believed that the Braves should have had two more pitchers on the team: Tommy Hanson, and Craig Kimbrel. Both of those pitchers saw action on Monday.
Hanson started the game for the Braves, and quite frankly, he was ridiculously good. The bearded wildman allowed just one run on four hits over seven innings, while walking out one and striking out six batters. Hanson now sports a 10-4 record on the year. Those ten wins are good for second in the league, behind Jurrjens, Roy Halladay and Kevin Correia, who all have 11. Hanson has struck out 103 batters in 94 1/3 innings, which is a rate of more than a batter per inning. He’s also only walked 34 to give him a strikeout to ratio of a hair over 3.00. His strikeout rate of 9.62 is third in the NL, behind only Clayton Kershaw and Tim Lincecum. He’s having a fantastic year, and deserves to be in Phoenix next week. As pitchers drop out with injuries and having to pitch on Sunday, Hanson could get the call as a replacement.
Speaking of Hanson getting jobbed out of an All-Star berth, what about Braves closer Craig Kimbrel? Kimbrel threw a perfect, 14 pitch ninth yesterday night to pick up his NL leading 25th save. I outlined his qualifications yesterday in more detail, but the jist of the matter is that Kimbrel has been the best reliever in baseball this year, and it’s a crime that he’s not going to be in Arizona next week. Kimbrel has been worth more as a reliever this season than a lot of great starting pitchers, including Chad Billingsley, Tim Hudson, Ubaldo Jimenez, undeserving All-Star Ryan Vogelsong, and yes…teammate Tommy Hanson.
