Chipper Ends Wild Game With Walk-Off

It’s been a little while since I’ve updated this blog, so I must apologize. It’s been an extremely hectic week with me working almost every day of the week and moving apartments during the week.

So, forgive me for going back a few days for this one.

The Atlanta Braves game on Wednesday (May 2) against the Philadelphia Phillies was probably the team’s (and maybe all of baseball’s) wildest game of the year, thus far. The Braves faced big deficits at multiple points during the game, made big comebacks, fell back down and then eventually won the game in extra innings 15-13.

Despite there being zero pitching from either team (which is interesting because both teams have top 10 pitching staffs [maybe even top 5] in the majors), this would’ve been a game that I would’ve killed to have seen. More than a month into the season I’ve seen about two and a half Braves games thanks to living in central Arkansas.

Seeing as how this is a blog about Chipper Jones’ final season there must be some sort of relevance in talking about this game, right? Yep, there is. For it was Chipper who ended this epic game with a walk off home run, the eighth walk off homer of his career, in the bottom of the eleventh.

Click HERE to see the shot

The home run came off of Phillies reliever Brian Sanches and is Jones’ 500^th home run as a professional baseball player (458 in the major leagues and 42 in the minor leagues [this number which came from the Atlanta-Journal Constitution apparently excludes homers in the playoffs, spring training and the all star game).

His homer was his fourth of the season. He would hit his fifth dinger of the season off of Colorado Rockies pitcher Matt Reynolds on Friday (May 4).  

Jones, who turned 40 recently, was joined by another 40-year old with a walk off on Wednesday. Rockies slugger Jason Giambi hit a pinch hit walk off homer to beat the Los Angeles Dodgers.

  
Jones said of his walk off homer: ''When I am in there, I want to make a splash. I did it tonight."