New Kid on the Block: Jair Jurrjens

For all of you Braves fans that remember our pitching woes last year, your prayers have been answered.

The Braves starting pitching has gotten a huge boost by a number of stellar outings by Jair Jurrjens. He made his major league debut in late 2007 for the Detroit Tigers and relocated to Atlanta to play for the Braves in the 2008 season.

Everyone knows the power of Chipper Jones's bat and that the reuniting of Smoltz and Glavine would add some depth to the Brave's pitching staff, but at the start of the season nobody could even spell Jurrjens's first name after only hearing it.

Three weeks later, he is shown that he is going to play a significant role in the Braves playoff hunt this season.

His 2-2 record is very misleading—in his two losses, the Braves as a whole struggled to score runs. In all four of his starts, he has had a solid outing. With a 3.20 ERA on the season, he is slowly emerging as a star of the Braves organization.

Against the Dodgers on April 20 in Atlanta, he threw seven great innings while allowing only one run and striking out a career-high eight batters. This improvement from other already solid starts make him as reliable on the hill as John Smoltz. He has the potential to be an 18-20 game winner if he stays healthy the entire season.

So what does this mean for the Braves? Aside from having a great starting rotation, they now have another pitcher they can count on.

Let's not forget that the Braves won 14 straight division titles in large part due to their pitching.

After the 2005 season, the starting five just have not been able to produce the way the Smoltz/Maddux/Glavine trifecta did throughout the 1990's. Jurrjens brings to the Braves what they have needed for the past two years.

Now that they finally have a solid No. 3 starter who has the ability to consistently give seven great innings, the starting rotation for the Braves should start to worry other National League teams.

The boys from Atlanta now have all of the tools that make up World Series champions—they have the pitching, hitting and determination to capture their first world championship in 13 years.