ATLANTA - On any other afternoon at Turner Field, Atlanta pitcher Brandon Beachy would have been the star of the Braves' 7-4 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers on Sunday.
Or don't you think zero earned runs and six strikeouts over seven innings are impeccable Player of the Game stats?
But even Beachy knew he was second among equals to the 30,831 tomahawkers soaking up the rays and ribbies inside the Ted.
"Chipper [Jones] was amazing," exclaimed Beachy. "To have his knee drained the day before yesterday, then come out here and hit a three-run homer; wow! Just having him out there on the field with us helps so much."
It would help if the 39-year-old Jones could play more, of course. In the three games that his ornery left knee has allowed him on the field, he's hit two home runs, batted .417 and led the Braves to three wins. In their six other games they stand 2-4.
"If I can come back like this every time, I might start taking every other game off," said a grinning Chipper, who announced in March that he'll retire at the close of the season. "I'm not sure [manager] Fredi [Gonzalez] would like it, but it's worked out pretty well so far."
Indeed, after missing the first four contests of the season with knee trouble, Jones homered at Houston last week to help the Braves to their first win of the year.
Then came Sunday, Atlanta attempting to win its fifth straight and sweep the Brewers out of Atlanta.
Having walked in the first inning, Jones came to the plate in the third with the score knotted at 1-1, two Braves on base and one out in the inning.
When Milwaukee pitcher Chris Narveson's first throw to Jones became a hanging curve, Chipper swiftly drove it over the left centerfield wall to put his team on top 4-1 and send the crowd into delirium.
"When you've been out of the lineup, you want to make a splash when you come back," he said. "Just rounding the bases, I told myself, 'Man, this is a pretty cool moment.' I had guys in scoring position all day and I didn't do a real good job of getting the rest of them in. But that homer felt pretty good."
Indeed, after walking for a second time in the fifth, Jones struck out with two aboard in the seventh, then flied out to left in the eighth with the bases loaded. But by then the game was safely in the win column, the Brewers scoring three meaningless runs in the ninth after the Braves had grabbed a 7-1 advantage.
"We're playing great right now," Gonzalez said. "We scored seven and it could have been 10 or 12. We're pretty good looking to watch right now. But there's not much time to celebrate in this league. We've got the Mets coming in and they swept us last week in New York. So we've got to put this behind us."
Not that Gonzalez was quick to put the importance of Jones' return behind him.
"Chipper's always talking baseball, always talking hitting, breaking down the opposing pitchers," said Gonzalez. "It's great to have him out there even when he's not playing. But you saw today why it's also nice to have him in the lineup."
That said, Braves Nation should not necessarily read too much into this sweep of the Brewers. Atlanta hasn't lost to Milwaukee at Turner Field since July of 2010. And Naverson was on the mound for the Brew Crew that night, which means whatever bad karma envelops these guys upon reaching Georgia is getting worse.
Far better to prematurely judge the Braves after this week's visit from the Mets, who not only swept Atlanta to open the season, but will arrive at the Ted tonight sporting a 6-3 mark entering the NL East rivals' three-game series.
Yet it wasn't just Chipper and Beachy who delivered the goods against Milwaukee. Jason Heyward homered to lift his batting average to .345. Eric Hinske again showed why he's one of the game's most feared pinch-hitters by collecting two RBI in the eighth with bases loaded and no one out. And lead-off hitter Michael Bourn collected three hits to raise his average to .243.
But the day justly belonged to Jones, the lone Braves player left from the 1995 world championship season, the lone switch hitter in major league history to own a .300 batting average (.304) and hit at least 300 home runs (456).
Said Chipper of the latest of those homers, "I've still got a ways to go, I'm still not feeling great at the plate from either side. And right now, I don't know about tomorrow. But I'm still doing all I can to prepare myself physically and mentally for that moment."
Because when you're 39 and your knees feel like they're 99, you know those pretty cool Chipper moments could vanish for good much more swiftly than any of us want to admit.