The other good sign for San Francisco has been

SAN FRANCISCO -- Aaron Blair has a pretty good sense of what he needs to do to be successful in the majors.Im a pitcher that needs to be down in the zone and create movement, he said. When Im up its just flat, it goes a long way.The 24-year-old pitcher had trouble keeping the ball down in his most recent outing, and it didnt work out well for him or the Braves.Joe Panik homered twice and matched his career high of four RBI to back Madison Bumgarner, and the San Francisco Giants beat Atlanta 13-4 on Sunday to win a series for only the second time since the All-Star break.Blair, called up from the minors to make his first big league start in more than two months, allowed five runs over four innings. He gave up three homers.The Giants scored eight runs off the Braves bullpen in the seventh inning, when they tripled three times and sent 14 batters to the plate.Blair (0-6) was brought up Sunday from Triple-A Gwinnett and is expected to stay in the rotation, manager Brian Snitker said, noting the organization is committed to the young pitchers development.Blair has allowed 11 home runs in 12 starts this season, six of which have been to Giants hitters. Panik has homered three times off Blair.Youve got to stay with him, keep working with him, Snitker said. You saw glimpses of the stuff, but its got to be consistent.Blair said hes not taking the opportunity to pitch in the majors lightly.I had my name on the map early, he said. I kind of faltered middle months; Im trying to get my name back on the map again.Freddie Freeman and Gordon Beckham homered for Atlanta. Ender Inciarte doubled, tripled and scored twice, but the last-place Braves have lost 13 of 18.Denard Span and Eduardo Nunez also homered, Brandon Crawford had three hits and Jarrett Parker drove in three runs for San Francisco.The Giants took two of three from the Braves and remained two games behind the first-place Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West.Bumgarner (13-8) allowed three runs over seven uneven innings. He struck out five and walked two.San Franciscos four-time All-Star pitched in and out of trouble most of the day but punctuated his afternoon with an emphatic fist pump after striking out pinch-hitter Jace Peterson to end the seventh.Panik hit a solo homer in the second and added a two-run shot in the fourth. The second baseman also reached on an infield single in the sixth and had a sacrifice fly in the seventh.It was the first multihomer game of his career.The Giants broke open a 5-3 game in the seventh.Being in the game that long with Bumgarner, we played good baseball for six innings, it just kind of unfolded there in the seventh, Freeman said.The slugger was asked if there was anything his young teammates could take from the game.Just forget about this one and just move on, he said. Take the day and a half that were going to get for today and tomorrow and come back Tuesday ready to play the Padres.HOT HITTERInciarte extended his hitting streak to 10 games. Hes batting .436 (17 for 39) with 10 runs during that stretch.EXTRA, EXTRAFreeman hit his 27th home run off Bumgarner in the sixth for his 67th extra-base hit of the season. Freeman had the second-most extra-base hits in the league going into Sunday.TRAINERS ROOMBraves: RHP John Gant was optioned to Triple-A Gwinnett to make room for Blair. ... Freeman was in the lineup for a third straight day with a sore back after tumbling over the railing and crashing into a seat Thursday in Arizona. I feel good now, he said. The soreness has gone down greatly over the last couple of days.UP NEXTBraves: RHP Julio Teheran (3-9) pitches against San Diego on Tuesday in the opener of a brief, three-game homestand. Teheran is winless since June 19. Colorado Avalanche Store .J. Jefferson has been charged with assaulting his girlfriend. Fake Avalanche Jerseys . The CFLs leading rusher kept adding to his gaudy numbers this season and scored the winning touchdown with just over two minutes to play. The New Westminster, B.C., native plowed three yards into the end zone for the last score of a heated, see-saw battle between the two teams with the best records in the CFL. https://www.cheapavalanche.com/ . Brett Kulak and Jackson Houck of the Vancouver Giants were each charged with assault causing bodily harm on Aug. 18, according to the B.C. court services. Colorado Avalanche Gear . Manuel was offered a position the day he was fired. He accepted earlier this week and the team made the announcement Friday. Custom Colorado Avalanche Jerseys . The Olympic champion curler and TSN curling analyst immediately went online to look at the Halls long list of honoured members. Thats when the enormity of the honour sunk in. SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Ever since the season opener, the results for the San Francisco 49ers havent changed each week: 10 straight losses for the worst skid in franchise history.With the playoffs, a winning record and just about any positive now officially out of reach this season, the 49ers (1-10) are left searching for any signs of progress that could provide optimism for the struggling franchise.Colin Kaepernick provided just that in Sundays 31-24 loss to the Miami Dolphins. Kaepernick threw for 296 yards and three touchdowns, ran for 113 yards more and nearly led a late game-tying drive before being tackled at the 2 on the final play in a performance that looked like a flashback at times to when he emerged as one of the NFLs top young quarterbacks in 2012 and `13.Hes made a progression from game to game where you see improvement from him, which is what youre looking for, coach Chip Kelly said on a conference call Monday. I think that part of it is positive. I think in all facets, its not just one facet where its just this and this is all hes done. Its in everything; his pocket presence, his accuracy, understanding and knowledge of protections.Kaepernicks struggles last season led to his benching midway through the year and then he struggled with injuries all offseason. With his practice time limited, Kaepernick was beaten out for the starting job by Blaine Gabbert before regaining it last month against Buffalo.After struggling his first two starts when he completed just 46 percent of his passes and had a 66.2 rating, Kaepernick has stepped it up since the bye week. He has completed 59.3 percent of his passes the past four games for 1,110 yards, eight TDs, two interceptions and a 96 rating. He has also rushed for 223 yards in that span, averaging 7.7 yards per carry.Despite gaining at least 475 yards for the second time in four games, the Niners were unable to translate that into a big scoring output. Garrett Celek lost a fumble in the red zone, San Francisco settled for a field goal on another drive inside the Miami 20 and then the final drive was stopped 2 yards short of a tying touchdown.ddddddddddddIm just disappointed in how we really hurt ourselves in that game, Kelly said. On the drives that we were stopped, all but one of them I think were our fault. We had the fumble in the red zone and then a couple times the penalties put us back, put us in long yardage situations, so it was tough to get out of those. But, I thought the offense did a nice job. You just wish with 475 yards of offense youd have more than 24 points.The other good sign for San Francisco has been an improving run defense. After allowing a 100-yard rusher in an NFL-record seven straight games, the Niners have been stouter on defense in recent weeks.They held David Johnson and Arizona to 80 yards rushing on Nov. 13 and then bottled up Jay Ajayi on Sunday. Ajayi had just 45 yards on 18 carries, far below the 137 yards rushing he had averaged over the previous five games.But it wasnt enough as Ryan Tannehill threw for 285 yards and three scores, including a 43-yarder to Kenny Stills.I thought our run defense played well yesterday, Kelly said. When you hold Ajayi to 45 yards, one of the premier backs coming in, I think our guys did a good job. I thought they tackled well by and large, but there were some, I think on the negative side, some of the pass-coverage stuff. Weve got to do a better job just contesting balls. There were guys there, but we need to make a play on the ball when its in the air.Game notes The 49ers arrived in Orlando on Sunday night and will stay there before traveling to Chicago before Sundays game against the Bears. ... LB Shayne Skov had an MRI on his injured knee but Kelly did not have the results. ... The 49ers signed RB Raheem Mostert to the practice squad and released RB Kelvin Taylor from the practice squad.---For more NFL coverage: http://www.pro32.ap.org and http://www.twitter.com/AP-NFL ' ' '