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Some stats make you stop and go back to make sure you read correctly. Stats like those that (almost) “Every Day” Jonny Venters is accumulating (almost) every day in a 22-consecutive-inning scoreless streak.

He’s given up one run in his past 34 appearances, none in his past 18, and reduced his majors-leading ERA to a microscopic 0.44, in a majors-leading 37 appearances and majors-leading 40-2/3 relief innings. (Yes, he’s majors’ leading reliever so far in ‘11.)


Hanson had a career-high 14 strikeouts Sunday, has been one of the majors' best for his past 30-plus starts.

But there are some other stats this Braves teams and individual Braves have produced that jump off the page right now, too, including:

• Tommy Hanson, who struck out a career-high 14 in seven innings yesterday, ranks second among major league starters with an .189 opponents’ average (behnd Boston’s Josh Beckett at .188), and Hanson leads the majors with a .101 OA with runners in scoring position.

• Jair Jurrjens (1.82) leads major league starters in ERA, and Roy Halladay (2.39) is the only other NL starter with an ERA lower than Hanson’s 2.48.

Hanson’s 9.6 strikeouts per nine innings is fourth in the NL, while Jurrjens’ 4.18 strikeouts/walk ratio (46/11) ranks fourth in the league in that category.

Speaking of Jurrjens, when someone asked the Astros’ Michael Bourn about his team striking out 14 times against Hanson on Sunday and being outscored 21-8 by the Braves in the first three in the four-game series that ends tonight at Minute Maid Park, Bourn said, “We’ve probably not even faced their best [pitcher] yet.”

He was referring to Jurrjens, who starts Tuesday against the Mets at Turner Field (tonight it’s Derek Lowe against Wandy Rodriguez, the only Astros pitcher who’s actually pitched quite well recently; more on that in a moment).

One more note on Hanson, whom I wondered aloud about in recent blogs, as to whether some Braves fans realized just how well he’s pitched in the past year or so. I still wonder, even in light of his 14-strikeout eye-popper start Sunday.

• Over his past 32 starts, basically a season’s worth going back to July 3, Hanson has a 2.43 ERA and .202 opponents’ average. He has a modest 11-10 record in that period, in large part because the Braves scored two runs or fewer while he was in 19 of those 32 starts.

In his past 21 starts, Hanson is 10-5 with a 2.25 ERA and .184 opponents’ average, with 118 strikeouts and 39 walks in 128 innings. The only valid criticism I see is that he’s averaged just six innings per start in those periods (the 32- and 21-start spans).

Other than that, you can probably count on one hand the number of NL starters as good or better than Hanson over those periods.

OK, I veered off my original thought, which was the eye-popping stats. Let’s get back to those. Here were some others I found this morning:

• Brian McCann is 7-for-21 with six homers and 14 RBIs in his past seven games against Astros, including 5-for-10 with four homers and eight RBIs in his past three. He’s homered in three consecutive games against them, May 17 and the past two days.

And the Braves catcher hit those homers on past two days while limping around with a huge welt on his right shin from a foul ball he hit off it well before his 10th-inning homer Saturday, and with an ugly bruise on his right shoulder.