Three Cuts: Braves roll to victory behind Perez, small-ball hitting

The Atlanta Braves entered Saturday's game in San Francisco after being shut out twice on their current road trip and with only eight runs in those five games.

The Braves doubled their road run total in one game with an 8-0 drubbing of the Giants. Here are three observations from the game:

Julio Teheran, Alex Wood and Shelby Miller anchor the front end of Atlanta's rotation -- try to forget about Teheran's near-five earned run average, which history tells us must normalize soon -- and at 24 years old each, provide some long-term promise for the Braves.

Add in the recent success of May 1 callup Mike Foltynewicz (over his last two starts Foltynewicz has 15 strikeouts in 14 1/3 innings and has allowed just three earned runs -- 1.88 ERA) and spots 1-4 look good for years to come. Especially when you consider Foltynewicz, at 23, actually reduces the average age of Atlanta's rotation.

With Atlanta's offseason haul that brought Matt Wisler, Foltynewicz, Max Fried, Manny Banuelos and Tyrell Jenkins to the franchise, odds weren't high that a guy like Williams Perez would come up and offer an anchor-like feel to the Braves' rotation.

But that seems to be what's happening.

Perez logged his first major-league hit and win on Saturday in San Francisco, but more important was the fact that this game marked his third consecutive stellar start of the season.

Even though he did walk four batters, Perez pitched seven strong innings where he didn't allow a run, struck out four and gave up just four hits. In each of his three starts this season he's allowed one or fewer runs.

In those three starts, Perez owns a 1.00 ERA and has struck out a batter per inning on average. He's also given up 17 hits, just fewer than one per inning.

In 25 starts last season at Double-A Mississippi, Perez was 7-6 with a 2.91 ERA. Success hasn't been strange for the 24-year-old Venezuelan. But Perez wasn't supposed to be the name that highlighted the back end of this young rotation. With numbers like this, however, Perez' emergence will keep names with bigger prospect value down on the farm.

Speaking of a youth movement, as the Braves' rotation sits now (four arms at 24 years old and one at 23) it's the youngest in the majors at 23.8 years of age.

Cameron Maybin went 2 for 5 with two RBI, a run scored and a stolen base on Atlanta's 8-0 win over San Francisco on Saturday. Seems like just another day at the office for Maybin.

That's not the whole story.

Maybin's season didn't start well. He hit just .175 in April and was used sparingly to the tune of just 47 plate appearances. Some extra time in the cage with hitting coach Kevin Seitzer and Maybin turned his season around in May.

With two hits on Saturday, Maybin's batting average for the month of May turned to .307. He's knocked in 17 runs, enjoyed seven extra-base hits and swiped five bags.

That fifth stolen base was a milestone for the Braves center fielder, who now sits at 100 career thefts in nine big-league seasons. He's succeeded seven times in 2015 in 10 attempts and threatens to get back on pace to his 2012 season in San Diego where he stole 26 bags.

On the topic of pace, Maybin could surpass two career marks this season. His highest RBI total was 45 in 2012. He's already at 22 as May winds down.

Maybin also has five home runs on the year, just four shy of his career high of nine set in 2011.

The Braves manhandled the Giants on Saturday, scoring eight runs and shutting out San Francisco. But, outside of Juan Uribe's laser-beam home run in the ninth inning, Atlanta scored quietly.

Atlanta belted out 14 hits -- Jace Peterson should be commended for hitting a single, double and triple in the game -- but only four of those went for extra bases.

That means the Braves hit 10 singles on Saturday. Even more to the point, some of these 10 singles weren't even hard-hit balls. A flare here, a blooper there, a seeing-eye single up the middle. That's how the Braves methodically put runs on the board.

As much as managers like crooked numbers (see the three runs Uribe helped pin up in the ninth) Atlanta slowly put distance between the Giants at zero and the final of 8-0. The Braves scored one run in every inning from the second to the fifth innings, then added another single run in the eighth.

Add in three stolen bases and a 6-for-17 clip with runners in scoring position on Saturday, and the Braves 8-0 win scream small ball, which has been the recipe for success all season.

Atlanta entered Saturday's game in 29th place in homers in the majors, but showed that the long ball isn't needed to win games.