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Status Quo
The Braves have been holding the status quo for about a week now staying at 0.5 games back of the Nationals. The team has played well at times but the pitching has suffered over the last couple of weeks. Somehow though, they have been able to hold the line.
The Braves and Nationals share the same record for their last 10 games 7-3. Both teams have won 21 games this season so far. The only difference is in the loss column of course where the Braves have 13. The Braves dropped two games to the Cubs in games that they should have won. It’s a repeating pattern for the Braves, winning games they shouldn’t and losing games they should. The pitching fell off dramatically against the Rockies in the series before the Cubs and it seemed to take the Braves a few games to get over that. The two games so far against the Cardinals have been wins for the Braves but the first game the pitching gave up a lot of runs yet again.
The Braves pitching is down at 24 in the league. That’s something that Braves fans haven’t seen for a long time. Yes, they are winning, but they are giving up a lot of runs in doing so. Luckily, the hitting has been able to keep pace in most games, but not all. It’s something that the team needs to get a handle on because if you’re pitching goes south then so does your team eventually. The team has an overall ERA of 4.22. That’s just not going to get it done later in the year. Braves fans have to hope that this is just a small slump.
On the other hand, the Braves hitting is pretty hot at present. They are at 6th overall in the league with a team batting average of .267. The team is at 3rd in the NL for hitting. The bats have really come to life and it’s a good thing given the pitching of late. Without it, the Braves would be in a very different spot about now having given up so many runs to other teams.
The Brave finish up today against the Cardinals and start a new series tomorrow with the Reds who have hit a little slump of their own of late. The Braves pitching will have to step it up against the Reds because they have some of the best hitters in the game and giving up 10 or 12 runs to them is going to put even more pressure on the Braves hitting to compensate. After the series with the Reds, the Braves don’t get a break at all and go straight into a series with the Marlins.
The Braves have been winning despite the poor pitching performances. They will either need to get some better pitching or have the hitting stay very hot to make up for it to hold the status quo in the next week.
Winning Good, Pitching Bad
The Braves continue to be the enigma they have been for the past few years. A bipolar mess of good and bad, wins and losses, hitting and now poor pitching. If the pitching continues on the current path, the winning certainly will not.
People always ask me, can’t you just be happy the Braves are winning? I am happy they are winning but I’m not blind. Anyone with eyes that knows anything about baseball knows that if the pitching continues on this road the Braves will get mauled by teams like the Nationals, the Phillies, and multitudes of others. Just because they are getting away with it against mediocre teams doesn’t mean it’s going to be good against a good team.
In fact, it’s going to be awful. You cannot have a team giving up 9 to 13 runs a game and expect to win against a team like the Phillies or the Nationals or the Dodgers. That scenario just isn’t going to happen. No amount of rally caps and extra inning heroics will save you if your pitching does that against a good team.
The Braves have been hitting the ball well. They in fact lead the entire league in runs scored with 155. That’s a lot of hitting. The team batting average is .271. Also very good. They’ve been putting up a lot of runs in recent games and winning in thrilling extra inning walkoff fashion.
The Braves are on the other hand ranked 25th in pitching….TWENTY FIFTH! The team ERA is 4.50……I can’t even type that again it’s so bad. The pitching has given up 266 hits and 133 runs. Do you understand just how bad that is?! And 125 of those runs were EARNED. Since Thursday the Braves have given up 21 runs and the bulk of those in just two games. Tim Hudson 7 runs, 6 earned. Mike Minor 8 runs, 8 earned. Do you see a pattern here? A bad pattern? Starters giving up mass runs in 5 or less innings? Does anyone think the Braves can win doing that against the Dodgers or Nationals? If you do, then you need to see a psychiatrist.
Look, winning is great. Winning in extra innings on walkoffs is great. Sitting 1.5 back of the Nationals and seeing the Phillies in last place is great. But this pitching is not going to win anything against better teams. That’s just a fact. The Braves get the Cubs next, which they can get by if the pitching continues to be this bad. After the Cubs, the Braves get the Cardinals in St. Louis and then the Reds and last I checked those two teams can hit….a lot. If the Braves pitching stays on the current path, they are going to get lit up.
To win baseball championships, the pitching has to be outstanding. There is no other way. The Braves can skate by on these mediocre teams, playing very long games, using up pitching, risking injury playing late into the night and again the next day on short rest and maybe pull out some wins. But when a real team shows up and the starting pitching is giving up 8 and 9 runs….the Braves are going to get shellacked.
Winning is good…but the pitching is bad and needs to get better in a hurry.
Braves’ Kryptonite
The Phillies have to be the Braves’ kryptonite. I thought that it was the Mets…but that’s just crazy talk. It’s the Phillies. I has been the Phillies for years. The Braves just cannot seem to shake them no matter what they do.
In a series that contained just about everything a baseball series can hold, the Phillies once again bested the Braves. The Phillies took the first game 4-2. In true Phillies fashion, they didn’t get a lot of opportunities for runs but when they did they got them and held the Braves bats almost silent. Phillies winners game 1.
In game 2 of the series, all sorts of wildness ensued. The Phillies Roy Halladay pitched something akin to an apocalyptic meltdown giving up EIGHT earned runs. I was wondering during the game if he gives up EIGHT earned runs a season and he gave them up in one game. It was very strange to say the least. The Braves pitching also gave up their fair share of runs and at the end of 9 innings the game was tied at 13-13. That’s 26 runs for those still counting. In the 11th, on comes the 40 year old bionic man Chipper Jones who hits a walkoff homerun and the Braves win 15-13. In a Braves/Phillies game there were 28 runs scored. That’s an aberration by anyone’s standards.
Then comes game 3 and we are back to the real world of Phillies/Braves baseball where the Phillies get enough runs and the Braves get zero runs and the Phillies win 4-0. Kryptonite back in full force. The Braves mustered all of three hits on the game. Three hits. This is how most games for the Braves against the Phillies go. They lose by anywhere from 1 to 4 runs and score zero runs and get almost no hits. Kryptonite.
The Braves were atop the NL East standings this week for half a day or something like that until the Phillies unloaded the Kryptonite on them. Now they are back in second place at 1.5 games back of the still division leading Nationals. The only hopeful thing for the Braves this weekend is that they 1) Don’t have to play the Phillies 2) Get to play the rocky Rockies and 3) The Phillies get to play the red hot Nationals.
Braves’ kryptonite…and it’s not green…it’s red….Phillies red.
Huddy Returns
The Braves have been on one hot roll since their abysmal start to 2012 and today they get back one of their valued puzzle pieces in Tim Hudson.
Hudson has been recovering from spinal fusion surgery and will make his return to the mound today against the Pirates for the Braves. Hudson is a three time All-Star and a former 20 game winner that when healthy only adds to the Braves tools to win games.
Last season, Hudson went 16-10 and had a 3.22 ERA. Hudson underwent back surgery in the off season and he nor the team had much of an idea of what to expect. Back surgery is not that common of an occurrence in baseball and Hudson and the team really didn’t know what to expect for recovery time and how he would feel approaching his return.
In his minor league rehab starts, Hudson went 0-2 with a 7.71 ERA in two starts for Single-A Rome but came into form in two Triple-A starts. He allowed only one earned run in 10 2/3 innings, giving up eight hits, walking five and striking out eight. His last rehab start he worked to 110 pitches. He is not likely to see that many in today’s game but it was a very encouraging sign prior to his return to the Majors.
Against the Pirates, he is 5-5 with a 2.65 ERA in 11 lifetime games. At home last season, Hudson was a spectacular 10-4 at home with an outstanding 2.31 ERA.
Hudson said that he feels like he truly has his legs back under him and he is very excited for today’s start. For the Braves, it only adds to their momentum of late and a healthy Hudson could mean even more wins for the team.
Beast Mode
The Braves have been on a roll for a while now and that three game loss to start the season is looking more and more like early season nerves. The further along the season gets the more into beast mode the Braves seem to be.
The team is now 13-7. They reside in 2nd place in the NL East still behind the surprising Nationals but now at only 1 game back. For their last 10 games, the Braves have gone 8-2. They have also posted three wins in a row. The team is a scorching 6-1 at home.
The Nationals have hit a bump in the road called the LA Dodgers and have dropped two games to them, which has allowed the winning Braves to move ever closer to first place. The Braves have been getting it done with timely hitting and some great bullpen work. The Braves have a team .263 batting average and have converted 8 out of 9 save opportunities on the pitching side. The team has put up a total of 107 runs so far this season. The bats have definitely come alive.
The Braves have the Pirates through Monday at home. Nothing is a given in baseball, but the odds are definitely in the Braves favor to win these next three games. Then, the Phillies come to town. The Braves have always struggled with the Phillies, but this isn’t your top of the line, completely healthy Phillies. This is a shell of what this team truly is and the Braves have a real opportunity with their current hot home streak to get some wins in this series. The Braves will see Hamels and Halladay to start the series. The red hot Brandon Beachy will start things off on the Braves side.
The Braves are definitely headed in the right direction. Beast mode suits them right down to the ground.
Moving On Up
The Braves are moving on up on the East side as it were now into 2nd place in the NL East. Those memories of an 0-3 start are fading fast and the bats are starting to sizzle.
After 14 games of this VERY early 2012 season, the Braves have gone from cellar to almost the penthouse sitting only 1.5 games back of the still hot Nationals. For their last 10 games, the Braves are 9-1. They have won 4 games in a row. They are 5-1 at home and 4-4 on the road.
In the last 9 games, the Braves have scored twice as many runs as their opponents. The Braves have put 68 runs across the plate in the past 9 games. Their opponents have plated 34 runs. Finally, the Braves run production is starting to come on par with their pitching. There have been a couple of games where the pitching gave up too many runs to suit me, 8 in one, 6 in another but overall the run production for the opponents has been kept in the 1, 2 and 3 range while the Braves are putting up 9 and 10 runs.
Brandon Beachy sits atop the entire Major League standings for pitchers with a 0.47 ERA in 3 games. He has 2 wins and 1 loss to his credit with 19 innings of work that includes ONE earned run and 14 strikeouts. That is really, really good. Jason Heyward and Brian McCann both have batting averages over .300 and Freddie Freeman is at .296 with Michael Bourn at .293.
The Braves play the D-Backs two more games and then they move on to the Dodgers. Braves fans are hopeful this turnaround keeps going. Great pitching and hot hitting. It just doesn’t get any better than that and the Braves can keep moving on up.
Still The Man
Chipper Jones has been a Brave for a very long time. He is approaching 40. His knees are starting to resemble the Bionic Man. He is beloved by Braves fans. He is STILL the man.
Over the series with the Brewers, Chipper Jones showed why he is STILL the man and why Braves fans love him so much. He had his knee drained of fluid after it was too swollen to play on and then he promptly returned and hit long balls over and over again to ruin the Brewers chances of winning. The fans know he plays with pain a lot of days. The fans know he could have quit a few years ago. The fans know he could have signed with another team at so many points in his career. The fans know that when he steps to the plate or mans the hot corner, he is going to give it everything he’s got. Chipper Jones is STILL the man.
Over the many years I have watched the Braves, almost 40 now, I have seen great players come and go. There was Hank Aaron, Dale Murphy, Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, John Smoltz and many others. I was a fan when Chipper took his first swing as a Brave and I am watching now as he takes some of his last. Through all the years he has been with the team, he has shown nothing but heart. And talent. He plays at 110% even when his body isn’t there. He is a certain Hall of Famer when his career is done. But his legacy of being loyal to his team and to his fans is something that will live on well past baseball records and homerun highlights.
In this day and age of business before baseball, Chipper has shown something that very few now do. Loyalty. From the players and from the teams. If a player can get more money, he’s out the door. If a team can shed salary space or get another player they want more, he’s out the door. The fans for the most part never figure into the equation. There are a few exceptions. Derek Jeter, Todd Helton and of course the man Chipper Jones. These players are unique in today’s baseball world and that makes them all the more special.
Chipper Jones is STILL the man. He has a .417 batting average in 3 games and 12 at bats at almost 40 years of age on knees that are on their last go round. He is special in a world of talent. He is special in the hearts of millions of fans. Chipper Jones is STILL the man and he always will be.
What A Difference A Week Makes
Just a week ago, the Braves were 0-4 and some of their fans had all but given up the season. What a difference a week makes.
Now, the Braves are 4-4 and today they could sweep the Brewers to move above .500. The team is getting settled into the routine of the season and is playing some good baseball. The fact that they have had the Brewers in this series has helped as they are not exactly one of the elite teams in baseball right now. That was evidenced by the multi-run game earlier in the series that had 18 runs being scored between the two. Not exactly a pitching clinic on either side in that game.
But as baseball fans and teams are prone to say, a win is a win and for the Braves it’s 4 wins in a row. For the Braves though, there will be no time to rest on their recovery. On Monday, they start a new series with the Mets. You know the team that they lost all those games to when opening the season. The Braves will have the opportunity to show if they are truly an elite team or if the Mets are going to have their number this season.
Hanson and Delgado will start the Mets series for the Braves. Hanson is 1-1 so far on the season and Delgado is 1-0. The Braves will face Gee and Santana the first two games of the series. As you will recall, the last meeting with Santana was not a good outcome for the Braves hitters. Let’s hope this time around things are different.
Jason Heyward is having a good start to the season so far and currently is sporting a .346 average. Chipper Jones has contributed when he has been in the lineup, but he still continues to suffer with his knee issues. Braves pitching has been good for the most part with a lot of close games so far this season except the one game against the Brewers where Braves pitching gave up 8 runs and 13 hits.
A sweep of the Mets in the upcoming series would go a long way in the standings early in the season and in the minds of both the players and the fans. With 4 wins in a row and sitting now at .500, what a difference a week makes.
Gloom….Despair….
After reading last night’s posts on Facebook and Twitter only one thing kept running threw my head over and over, a song from the show Hee Haw. Gloom, despair and agony on me. Deep dark depression excessive misery. If it weren’t for bad luck I’ve have no luck at all. Gloom, despair and agony on me.
The Braves have started the season 0-3 and you would think from the multitude of posts that it is the end of the world. That the Mayan calendar got it wrong and today April 9 is the end of everything. That there are somehow no more games left in the 2012 season and a 3 game deficit can never be made up.
Believe me, I know how these people feel. I agree that starting 0-3 is not a good thing. I agree that starting 0-3 to the Mets is NOT a good thing. But people please, it’s not the Phillies and there are well over 150 games left to go yet.
I think that a lot of it comes from the fact that a lot of these posters are people who have only watched the Braves since the time of Glavine, Maddux and Smoltz. Those people are used to seeing the team win division pennant after division pennant. Those people don’t know anything about the Braves before that. Well, this person does. I know all about the Braves team that was horrific and that would make an 0-3 start look like winning the World Series. Perhaps a little perspective is needed.
Yes, the team has problems. They have had quite a problem with hitting. When they have overcome the hitting problem, they have had a problem with moving runners around. Leaving runners on base in scoring position has become an every game occurrence for the team. The power hitters take a while to warm up.
But they have some very good things too. The pitching is still very good and getting better. The fielding is really good. The ability to hold the other team to 1 or 2 runs is a very good thing. The Braves just need to find a way over the scoring hump.
It’s very hard for a lot of fans to just remain calm after the last 2 years. Years where the team had good pitching and good hitting but they were still losing games by 1 run and losing 1-0 games and 2-1 games. They were not getting deep into the post season. They weren’t winning division pennants. The natives are restless as it were. There seems to be little tolerance for the repetitive pattern I wrote about earlier this weekend.
Baseball is a very long season. It’s easy to get caught up in the moment, but it’s the long run that matters. Baseball is a game of patience, on the field and off. Without it, teams collapse and fans start to sing songs from Hee Haw. Trust me, it’s not all gloom and despair with just 3 games in the books. It’s just the first steps on a very long journey. Remember, the last time the Braves started a season at 0-3, they went on to win 101 games.
Repeating A Pattern
As soon as I made the statement that I was disappointed in the Braves 1 run loss to start the season, the attackers pounced. Claiming I was throwing in the towel, giving up on the season, over reacting and a multitude of other things. All of which were wrong. I was just pointing out that the Braves are repeating a pattern and it’s not a good one.
Over the past couple of years, the Braves have had a repetitive pattern to their game play. They have decent to very good pitching. They have some hitters who can get hits. They can get runners on base in most games. The pattern is that they can’t get runners across home plate to score runs. They end up losing games by 1 run in tight matchups, 1-0, 2-1, 3-2, over and over and over again throughout the season. It is a pattern they have repeated consistently for at least the last 2 years.
I realize that pitching has gotten much better. The science of pitching has greatly outpaced the science of hitting. The use of PEDs not withstanding (and it is still going on in large numbers don’t kid yourself) has not helped batters to overcome the improved pitching (and they may also be using PEDs). All things being equal (use of PEDs or not), the Braves have been unable in many games to get runners across the plate and win games. The RISP has been rising every single year. They can get runners on….they just can’t get them around.
The game to start the 2012 season was a perfect example. The Braves pitching was very good. The Mets had 4 hits and 1 run for the game. That’s very good pitching. The Mets pitching was very good. The Braves had zero runs, but they had 7 hits. That means they had 7 chances to score a run and didn’t. At least 7, this is based on hits only. Not walks or any other base reached event. They had those 7 chances off hits to score runs and could not do it. They lost the game 1-0. This is repeating a pattern and it’s not good and it does not bode well for the 2012 season.
The Braves have the pitching to compete in the NL East. They have some batters who can hit the ball. But if you cannot move those who get on base around the basepaths and score runs, you just are going to keep repeating the same pattern over and over and over again. This Braves fan is just pointing that out.
I never give up hope for a season until the last game is played. But it would be foolish to ignore what is so obvious and so repetitive. This is a pattern that the Braves have got to stop repeating if they want to get deep into the post season or into the World Series. You cannot do that if you are unable to stop losing games by 1 run. That’s just a fact, not a sign of giving up.
Deborah Horton
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