More from Wednesday

Verlander’s outing led my notebook, so you can read about it there, but I didn’t have room for what happened after that. Ledezma looked by far his best all spring, games and bullpen sessions combined. He struck out Adam LaRoche to get out of the two-on, two-out jam in the third inning, then retired seven of the last eight batters he faced. It should’ve been seven in a row except for a fielding error in the fifth. As always, the key with Ledezma is consistency, so he has to repeat it. But he didn’t look afraid to challenge hitters Wednesday.

The bullpen kind of fell apart from there. Franklyn German was throwing nasty stuff, but didn’t seem to have any idea where it was going. He hit back-to-back batters in the eighth to load the bases with no one out and start Atlanta’s game-tying rally. But just when it seemed like German was going to lose it, he struck out back-to-back hitters to strand the bases loaded. Leyland said it wasn’t fair to judge German today because his pitches were moving so well. An inning later, Chris Spurling gave up back-to-back homers to Jonathan Schuerholz, who now leads the Braves in homers this spring, and James Jurries. It’s early in spring training, so take it for what it’s worth.