Reliever Downs pitching through the pain

ATLANTA -- Reliever Scott Downs will continue providing the Braves with a veteran lefty arm out of the bullpen, even though the pain in the fractured ring finger of his non-throwing hand may not fully subside until after the season. Downs missed just under a week of action after he took a line drive off his glove in the sixth inning of the Braves' Sept. 7 loss to the Phillies.

"I've got a brace that I put in my glove, but I can still feel it," Downs said. "It's not as bad as it was when I first did it. The swelling has gone down, so it's just a matter of what I can tolerate. It feels fine."

Downs stumbled in his return to the mound on Friday night, when he entered with two outs and a runner on second in the eighth inning of a tie game. San Diego pinch-hitter Logan Forsythe stepped in and took a 2-2 curveball into center field to push across the game-winning run, saddling reliever David Carpenter with the loss.

"When you take six days off -- when you take any days off, really -- you don't know how you're going to do, but I felt good out there," Downs said. "I made some good pitches and then made one bad one where he got enough on it."