AJC > Sports > Braves > Blog > Archives > 2006 > July > 18
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Scorching Braves show that it’s not over
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On July 1, the Braves were 10 games behind in the wild-card standings, with nine teams ahead of them.
Today they are five games behind in the wild-card standings, with seven teams ahead of them, six of those teams within 2-1/2 games of the Braves and none playing as well as Atlanta has for the past two weeks.
So tell me again how it’s virtually impossible for the Braves to win the wild card, and it makes sense for them to trade John Smoltz and/or Andruw Jones and rebuild for the future.
With all due respect, that notion is ridiculous. When you have a chance to win now, you win now. Anyone can get hit by a bus walking across the street tomorrow _ or shot driving down the highway, if you play for the Dallas Cowboys — and to sacrifice the here-and-now for an unsure future, especially when the here-and-now is still this good, is foolish thinking. And it’s not Schuerholz or Cox thinking, I can assure you.
The Braves are the hottest team in the National League, with a season-high six-game winning streak and a league-best 10-3 record in July.
Wild-card leader Cincinnati (49-44 including 5-5 in its past 10 games) is the only team more than 2-1/2 games ahead of the Braves entering Tuesday’s games.
The others in front of Atlanta in the wild-card standings include Arizona (6-4 in its last 10), Los Angeles (five straight losses), San Francisco (three straight losses), Milwaukee (5-5 in its last 10), Houston (4-6 in its last 10) and Colorado (eight straight losses).
In other words, this ain’t like trailing the White Sox, Yankees, Blue Jays and Twins in the AL wild card race. It’s imminently winnable, this NL wild card.
And if the Braves would make a trade — which I still think they will, and should; they owe it to themselves to do everything they can possibly do to win, given this team’s resurgence — to acquire some bullpen help, and they can get Tim Hudson going between now and season’s end, the Braves might even have a decent chance in a postseason series.
After all, any team that gets three good starting pitching performances to begin a playoff series can win that series, especially if that team’s got a lineup that’s clicking.
Oh, and the Braves’ lineup is clicking, if you haven’t noticed. More than clicking. It’s absolutely roaring.
Now, no one in their right mind expects them to keep hitting like this. It’s impossible. The Braves are hitting an absurd .350 with 31 homers, 113 runs (in 13 games!), a .414 OBP and .619 slugging percentage in July.
To repeat, they’re hitting .350 with a .619 slugging percentage! No other NL team is hitting as high as .310 or slugging .500.
The surging Angels, whose seven-game winning streak is the only one in the majors longer than the Braves’ current streak, lead the AL with a .322 average and .532 slugging percentage in July, and they’ve won nine of 10 games.
The Braves have scored 27 more runs than the next-most prolific scoring team in the majors this month.
Seriously, this is nuts. And again, we reiterate that we know it won’t continue, can’t continue, not at anything like this clip.
But, wow, has it been stunning and impressive, and a stark reminder of how much talent these young Braves have in their lineup, from 22-year-olds Brian McCann and Jeff Francoeur to 34-year-old Chipper Jones and plenty in-between.
And if Marcus Giles doesn’t look out, he might just get Wally Pipped by Wilson Betemit, whose eight-hit, eight-RBI production in three games while Giles has been out of the lineup could make it a lot easier for the Braves to pull the trigger on a deal for Giles if they could get bullpen help in return.
That, or pull the trigger on a Betemit deal, though he’s showing he might just be too valuable to trade since he’s making relatively peanuts and still will be very affordable next year.
The Padres have to be considering strongly now their reluctance to deal reliever Linebrink for Betemit, unless it was a smoke screen all along and they wanted to try to squeeze more out of the Braves, which they won’t be able to, not for Linebrink.
Anyway, it’ll be interesting to see how long this can go on. The Braves face old pal Jason Marquis tonight, and Chipper is 2-for-3 with two homers against him, Andruw 3-for-6 with three homers against him. Tee it up, boys.
The Braves have hit .311 with 138 runs during their current 14-6 run, and .349 with an obscene 30 homers in their 10-2 run since July 2. They’ve hit .390 _ .390! _ with 18 homers in their past five games.
Un-be-lievable.
Even if their surge of four consecutive games of double-digit scoring continues tonight, it’ll be a shocker if they can do it again Wednesday with Chris Carpenter going for the Cards. He just doesn’t get blown up like that.
But until it does stop, I will offer my own form of daily appreciation for the Braves’ absurdly good offensive performance. In the form of similarly remarkable song lyrics.
First up, we offer this from Lucinda Williams’s beautiful “Drunken Angel,” which I’ve had in my head since last night’s discourse with a few tasteful bloggers.
(And if you don’t own the CD — it’s from, “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” — I implore you, beg you, highly recommend to you to download, buy it, steal it, do whatever it takes to procure it. Today. Now.)
DRUNKEN ANGEL, by LUCINDA WILLIAMS
Some kind of savior singing the blues
A derelict in your duct tape shoes
Your orphan clothes and your long dark hair
Looking like you didn’t care
Drunken Angel
Blood spilled out from the hole in your heart
Over the strings of your guitar
The worn down places in the wood
That once made you feel so good
Druken angel, drunken Angel
You’re on the other side
Drunken angel
You’re on the other side
Sun came up it was another day
And the sun went down you were blown away
Why’d you let go of your guitar
Why’d you ever let it go that far
Drunken Angel, drunken angel
