FanHouse Braves

The Atlanta Braves have announced that struggling second baseman, Kelly Johnson has been placed on the 15-day disabled list with tendinitis in his right wrist.

This is the second piece of bad news Johnson has received this week. After Tuesday night's game, Bobby Cox announced that Martin Prado would take over as the starting second baseman for the Braves. Johnson, who is hitting .214 this season in 234 at-bats, has been mired in an awful 9-for-74 slump. Johnson's overall poor hitting, especially his .174 average against right-handed pitchers, combined with Prado's recent success forced Cox to rule out a platoon situation and give the job outright to Prado.

Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.

You Oughta Know ...
That the Braves have their longest winning streak of the year.

OK, it's only four games. But before Thursday night, Atlanta was the only team that had not won four straight at some point this season.

And where has it gotten the Braves? Not out of fourth place in the NL East – yet within two games of the first-place Phillies, their victims the past three games.

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It's a baseball podcast. The math is easy right? BaseCast. Let's rock.

Hey there! It's the initial MLB FanHouse BaseCast. You know you're excited, and frankly, you should be, because it's pretty freaking awesome. In this episode, host tandem Will Brinson and Andrew Johnson (Prez) welcome Matt Snyder and Ed Price into the proverbial fray.

We discuss -- with Snyder -- the Cubs' lack of success, the insane notion of cutting Carlos Zambrano and if a division title is still in the works. Then Ed joins us from Yankee Stadium where we (ironically?) talk about the banged up Mets, the NL East race and whether the Braves plan on making a deadline deal or not.

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We've all heard by now that Jeff Francoeur has a lucky pair of turkey underwear. The Braves are 7-0 when he wears them to the ballpark.

Sunday, Francoeur decided to tempt fate, announcing that he would wear his lucky underwear for the first time in back-to-back games. On Tuesday (the Braves were off on Monday), the world was going to see just how powerful this lucky charm was for Francoeur and the Braves. However, tragedy struck.

Running late to get to Turner Field, Francoeur returned to his home to find his underwear wet and still in the washing machine. Instead of waiting for the dryer to runs its course, Francoeur left for the game wearing normal undergarments.

It hasn't been the greatest week for Cubs manager Lou Piniella. Not only is he feeling the heat of the Chicago media with the Cubs scuffling, but he's also gotten into an argument with Milton Bradley in which he called his right fielder a "piece of [expletive]." Regardless of whether the exchange should have ever left the clubhouse or not, it's not exactly the type of thing you want the world to know about.

All of this was done after a recent poll by Sports Illustrated in which Major League players were asked anonymously which manager in baseball they would least like to play for, and which one they'd most like to play for. Guess which one Sweet Lou emerged "victorious" in.

Jeff Francoeur seems like kind of a weird dude. I base that solely on the fact that, according to something I read Monday, he owns a pair of lucky "turkey underwear."

Yes, I wish I was kidding. But I'm not! Frenchy rocked out the bird-covered drawers in multiple games recently, based on the fact that the team is 7-0 on days when he wears them.

Francoeur said he had not worn the turkey briefs for back-to-back games all season, but will Tuesday (the Braves were off Monday, and he planned to ask his wife, Catie, to wash the underwear).

[...]"I wore the turkey underwear," he announced before Sunday's game. [Tommy]Hanson then proceeded to pitch six scoreless innings Sunday and the Braves beat the Red Sox, 2-1.

Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.

You Oughta Know ...
That Sunday was a good day to steal home in the major leagues. With an assist from Carlos Zambrano, who airmailed a pitch to the backstop as Dewayne Wise attempted to suicide squeeze, Chris Getz was credited with a steal of home in the White Sox's 6-0 victory over the crosstown rival Cubs. Zambrano followed by plunking Wise, pushing the oft-heated interleague rivalry close to fisticuffs.

Later in the afternoon, the Angels' Gary Matthews Jr. pulled off a straight steal of home in Los Angeles' 12-8 win over the Diamondbacks.

"I got a good jump and pulled it off," Matthews said. "The key was getting a big lead. They're definitely not expecting it with two strikes. If there was a right-handed hitter up there, I wouldn't have even tried."

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Jeff Bennett is notable for two reasons. First off, he's the unfortunate subject of the most unflattering photograph ever taken (see image right). Second, on Wednesday, he sucker-punched a dugout wall, broke his left fifth metacarpal, and returned to the mound to pitch another full inning.

The fracture didn't seem to adversely affect Bennett's performance. Which begs the question: how many times have you thought, "wow, I sure am glad I have a fifth metacarpal behind the pinky finger of my non-dominant hand! What a wonderful skeletal feature!" I never have. What a worthless bone.

Friday's Dugout is after the jump.

After giving up the go-ahead single to Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez on Wednesday, Atlanta Braves reliever Jeff Bennett punched a door near the dugout in anger, breaking his hand.

As self-inflicted injuries go, Bennett's broken hand wasn't quite as silly as Milton Bradley tearing his ACL while arguing with an umpire back in 2007 or Gus Frerotte head-butting a wall after a touchdown and missing the second half of a game in 1997. But, it was dumb nonetheless. And it landed Bennett on the 15-day disabled list.

After punching the wall, Bennett, seeing a bump already rising on his hand beneath his non-pitching pinky finger, pushed the broken bone back into place and trotted back out to the mound to face the Yankees in the seventh inning.

When the Atlanta Braves suddenly released two-time Cy Young Award winner Tom Glavine earlier this month shock waves were felt throughout the baseball community. It doesn't matter which side of the "were the Braves right or wrong with how they handled this move" fence you sit, what matters now is the fact that Glavine says that he isn't going to pitch again.

At least not in 2009.

In a text message conversation with FOX 5 Atlanta's Buck Lanford, Glavine said, "I'm not going to pitch or do anything in baseball until at least next year."