Atlanta Braves 9, Montreal Expos 0

Russ Ortiz pitched his third career shutout, a three hitter, as the Braves routed the Expos 9-0. Ortiz (14-7) carried a perfect game into the 6th inning, retiring the first 15 batters before the Expos got 2 hits in the 6th. Ortiz is now 5-0 on the season against Montreal. He had a 1.47 ERA entering the game against them, and it actually will go down. I'm not sure if that's a good thing though, to have 5 of his 14 wins against one team. But, I guess that's the unbalanced schedule for you.

Overall in this game Ortiz pitched 9 innings, allowing no runs on 3 hits, 3 walks, and 5 strikeouts.

The Braves scored 8 of their runs in the first 3 innings against John Patterson, (6 of the runs were charged to Patterson) including 5 in the 3rd knocking him out of the game. Another easy win. The Braves could cruise through the rest of the game, although the Montreal bullpen did a good job allowing them to one run after the 3rd. The Braves outscored the Expos anyway 1-0 through the rest of the game.

Hitting Stars: Andruw Jones was 2 for 5 with a grand slam (his 24th homer) and 4 RBI. Adam LaRoche was 3 for 5. Johnny Estrada was 2 for 4. Every Braves starter had a hit except for Marcus Giles, and that's including the pitcher Ortiz (that sounds like yesterday!).

Game notes: Johnny Estrada was in Montreal and played despite the fact that his wife could give birth at any minute.

Atlanta has shut out Montreal 4 times this season.