JUPITER, Fla. -- Since becoming the Royals' general manager in 2006, Dayton Moore has lured a number of former Braves players, coaches and executives to his new organization. Eight members of his current 40-man roster and his current manager, Ned Yost, can all call themselves former Braves.

Before signing a Minor League contract with the Braves for the upcoming season, utility man Ed Lucas spent each of his seven professional seasons with the Royals. During that span, he got to know Kyle Davies, Brayan Pena and a few other former Braves who had good things to say about their former organization.

"Guys usually have a tendency to downplay or trash wherever they came from," Lucas said. "But every guy that came over there, never had anything but good things to say about this organization. So when I had a chance to come over here, I was very excited."

The Braves are excited about what they've seen from Lucas during the first two weeks of the Grapefruit League season. The versatile utility man had hit .391 (9-for-23) with a triple entering Monday afternoon's game against the Cardinals.

Drafted as a shortstop in the eighth round of the 2004 First-Year Player Draft, Lucas has spent most of his Minor League career proving to be versatile. He has played a majority of his games as a third baseman and shown the ability to play the outfield.

"I've just done whatever I could do to stay in the lineup," Lucas said. "I pride myself on my ability to play everywhere and I'm comfortable everywhere."

Lucas' attempt to win an Opening Day roster spot is aided by the fact that he has the ability to serve as the backup the Braves need for shortstop Alex Gonzalez. He and Diory Hernandez are the only candidates for the final bench spots who could prove serviceable at the shortstop position.

Beachy, Minor toss zeros in rotation bids

JUPITER, Fla. -- When Spring Training concludes, Mike Minor and Brandon Beachy plan to live together in a northern Atlanta suburb. It remains to be determined which of them will begin the season driving to Turner Field for work.

While pitching in separate games in Jupiter on Monday, Minor and Beachy continued their battle to claim the fifth spot in the Braves' rotation.

Beachy surrendered two hits over five scoreless innings in a "B" game against the Cardinals in the morning hours.

After taking time to watch his good friend pitch on one of the back fields, Minor duplicated his friend's effort by giving up two hits over five scoreless innings against the Cardinals in a Grapefruit League game at Roger Dean Stadium.

Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez will announce his Opening Day starter and the first four pitchers in his rotation on Wednesday. He plans to wait at least another week before announcing whether the left-handed Minor or right-handed Beachy will begin the season as his fifth starter.

Thus maybe it's fitting that Beachy kind of laughed late last week when asked whether he and Minor have found a place to live in the Atlanta area. The pitcher that doesn't win the battle for Atlanta's fifth spot will begin the season playing for the Triple-A affiliate in Gwinnett County, about 30 minutes north of Turner Field.

"We've got a few options," Beachy said. "We're kind of procrastinators when it comes to that."