Braves' Delgado wins prospects battle

The Mississippi Braves eked out a 3-1 win over the Chattanooga Lookouts in the opening tilt of Wednesday's matinee doubleheader, a game that featured a pair of stellar starting pitching performances from top prospects as well as Kenley Jansen taking the loss in his 2011 Lookouts debut.

Jansen opened the season in Los Angeles after a dominant 2010 but was sent down Sunday after the Dodgers activated reliever Hong Chih-Kuo from the disabled list. He came on in the top of the seventh inning with the ballgame in a scoreless tie, but Tyler Pastornicky followed a single and a walk with a decisive three-run homer over the center-field fence.

To say Pastornicky was an unlikely hero would be an understatement. It was the shortstop's first home run of the season, and he entered the game with just four extra-base hits on the season. Jansen, meanwhile, had never surrendered a home run -- or suffered a loss -- as a member of the Lookouts. In 2010 the Curacao-born fireballer made 22 appearances with the club and went 4-0 with a 1.67 ERA.

Pastornicky's heroics made a winner of Randall Delgado (1-1), who allowed a run on two hits over seven innings of work en route to his first complete game since 2009. The 21-year-old Panamanian's bid for a shutout was thwarted with two outs in the bottom of the seventh, as Brian Cavazos-Galvez's double to left field scored Scott Van Slyke from first. The only other Lookout batsman to hit safely against Delgado was Matt Wallach, who led off the first with an infield single that deflected off the glove of first baseman Ernesto Mejia.

Equally impressive was Chattanooga starter Rubby De La Rosa, who followed up April 29's 10-strikeout performance with six innings of shutout ball. De La Rosa scattered three hits and struck out seven batters against one walk. The 22-year-old native of the Dominican Republic has whiffed 36 batters over just 27 1/3 innings pitched this season, tops in the Southern League and five more than third-place Delgado.