Coming off major knee surgery, and coming up on his 39th birthday, Chipper Jones came back to baseball in a big way.
At the plate in a real game for the first time since August, the Atlanta Braves third baseman doubled for the first hit by anyone in the 2011 season. He legged it out, even, beating a throw from new Washington Nationals right fielder Jayson Werth.
"I was busting it out of the box," Jones said. "Didn't necessarily want to slide, but I had to."
He went on to score the season's first run, Jason Heyward added a solo shot, and Derek Lowe allowed three singles in 5 2-3 innings on a chilly, damp opening day, helping the Braves beat the Nationals 2-0 Thursday to make Fredi Gonzalez a winner in his debut as Atlanta's manager.
The Braves played their first regular-season game since Bobby Cox retired at the end of 2010 after two decades — and 15 playoff appearances — as their skipper.
"It doesn't feel any different. A win's a win," said Gonzalez, who previously managed the Florida Marlins. "I'm wearing this uniform and, hopefully, I'm wearing it for a long time and get a lot of wins."
With his sinker in fine, darting form, Lowe (1-0) struck out six and walked two.
Lowe needed plenty of pitches, 105, and left after walking Nationals third baseman Ryan Zimmerman in the sixth. Adam LaRoche followed by singling off lefty Eric O'Flaherty, who got out of it by getting Michael Morse to ground out.
"There was a lot of trying to figure each other out. I couldn't go after them the same exact way I did last time, because with technology you can figure each other out," Lowe said. "It was a cat-and-mouse game. That's probably why I threw so many pitches in a short amount of time."
Four relievers got the last 10 outs. Craig Kimbrel worked a 1-2-3 ninth for the save, his second in the majors.
The Nationals were without their most prized young player, pitcher Stephen Strasburg, who flew back to Florida on Thursday to continue rehabilitation from reconstructive elbow surgery that is expected to sideline him for most of 2011.
In front of a non-sellout crowd of 39,055, neither starting pitcher was bothered one bit by the cold — it was 41 degrees — or by the misty drizzle that came and went.
After giving up Heyward's homer on a hanging slider, Nationals pitcher Livan Hernandez retired 16 of 17 batters the rest of the way, including 15 in a row. Making his ninth opening day start, Hernandez allowed four hits in 6 2-3 innings.
"Both clubs pitched good," Nationals manager Jim Riggleman said, "but they were a little better than us today."
