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Home > Mark Bradley > Archives > 2008 > May > 08
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Braves lose pitchers, manage wins
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For a team in terrible shape, the Braves are in great shape. They keep losing pitchers, and still they’re 18-15 in a division where nobody has caught a flying start. They’re leading the league in batting average and ERA, which tells us that everything the brass thought about this club in spring training is coming to fruition.
Too bad the pitchers keep going splat.
The Braves have needed seven starters to get through 5-1/2 weeks. Two of those seven were pressed into service Thursday, and that doesn’t include Buddy Carlyle, who’s more starter than reliever.
Jo-Jo Reyes, who wasn’t on the Opening Day roster, started the game and lasted eight outs before developing a blister on his index finger. He gave way to Carlyle, who lasted six outs before getting run over by Kevin Kouzmanoff. Two innings later Jeff Bennett, who has both started and closed, took the ball. It was almost a trick question: How many starting pitchers does it take to get through one nine-inning game?
Almost inevitably, the Braves won. They scored five runs, four unearned. A key hit was again delivered by Greg Norton, who wasn’t on the team five days ago. The winning hit was struck by Matt Diaz, who became the author of the team’s first one-run victory of 2008.
Thus has a team without a full rotation and a settled closer won six in a row. Even if there’s an air of unreality about this latest surge, the Braves will take it.
“All of this,” said Tom Glavine, who landed on the disabled list for the first time in his durable life, “is a testament to the depth Frank [Wren, the general manager] spoke about this winter.”
That’s the good news. The bad: It can’t last. Either the Braves start keeping some pitchers healthy or they will, inevitably, begin to lose. You can mix and match for a week or even a month, but not forever.
Said Bobby Cox: “Frank’s working as much as he can [to find more pitching].”
Said Wren: “We’re always looking, always talking. … We’ve got to get a little more definitive on when guys will get healthy.”
In the case of Mike Hampton, the answer could well be never. In the case of John Smoltz, it’s even more complicated. When/if he returns, he has said he’ll move to the bullpen. That would bolster the relief corps while leaving a massive hole in a rotation that, at least on paper over the winter, looked as stout as anyone’s. Then again, should a rotation consisting of so many aging arms ever been deemed sound?
Said the fairly ancient Glavine, parrying the point: “Even the young guys are getting hurt now.”
The spring consensus was that the Braves had nine big-league caliber starters: Glavine, Smoltz, Hampton, Bennett, Carlyle, Reyes, Tim Hudson, Jair Jurrjens and Chuck James. Four of those have done time on the DL, not counting the two who were dinged Thursday. This doesn’t include the closer Rafael Soriano or the set-up man Peter Moylan, both of whom are ailing. (Or Mike Gonzalez, coming off elbow surgery.) What in the name of horse liniment is going on?
Roger McDowell doesn’t know, and he’s the pitching coach. As such, someone asked, does he take it personally when one of his men gets hurt? “No,” McDowell said. “Everyone’s put together differently. A guy might be throwing his last pitch, or he might have 10,000 pitches left in him.”
The Braves needed 152 pitches from seven pitchers to win Thursday. The victory capped a splendid homestand, but a team cannot subsist on such extraordinary events for long. (For one thing, the already-taxed bullpen will be gassed come June.)
This has been, all things considered, something approaching a great 5-1/2 weeks. But Cox, as he usually does, had it right when he said: “When we get all our top guys back, we’ll be greater.”
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Weird Spirit reward niceness
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s weird, yes, but pretty much everything about the Atlanta Spirit is weird.
Don Waddell takes his team from the playoffs to 28th place in a 30-team league, and he keeps his job. Billy Knight finally lifts his team to the playoffs, and he asks out.
Knight finally finds a point guard, and somehow it’s kinda sorta held against him for taking so long. Mike Woodson takes that point guard and still doesn’t lift his team to .500, and it would seem he’s coming back. (The Hawks were 21-28 on the day Mike Bibby arrived, 16-17 thereafter.)
If there’s a lesson to be learned from all of this - and that’s a big “if” - it’s something like: It never hurts to be nice to people.
Knight wanted to be left alone, which would have been fine were he a forest ranger, but he was the general manager of an NBA team. He could barely bring himself to speak with the media, and when he did he talked rather airily. (His quote from 2006: “I think I know more than anybody else.”)
Said Michael Gearon Jr.: “Billy wasn’t the best with the press. He might have been the worst.”
Waddell, by way of contrast, is famously affable and accessible. He has ingratiated himself with owners - chiefly the Gearons - who were initially skeptical of his Thrashers stewardship. The younger Gearon now defends Waddell the way he used to defend Knight, and if you’re wondering how you can keep your job as your team is falling to pieces … well, that’s one way.
As for Woodson: It was clear all along the Gearons wanted to keep him, too, and the Hawks’ playoff run gave them that justification. “Mike deserves an opportunity to see what he can do with this team,” Gearon Jr. said Wednesday, glossing over the reality that Woodson has had this core group - Joe Johnson, Marvin Williams and the two Joshes - since 2005.
There was a time not so long ago when it seemed the Spirit would have no choice but to fire everybody. Given that Knight is leaving of his own accord, it appears the Spirit will fire nobody. Indeed, the only guy to get canned by this unbelievably patient band of owners - even Bernie Mullin technically “resigned” - is Bob Hartley.
Having a career record of 106-222 is apparently cause for an extension. Losing six in a row to start a season … now that’s a firing offense.
