AJC > Sports > Braves > Blog > Archives > 2007 > June > 08
Friday, June 8, 2007
McCann gets needle; NL East tightens
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
First up, a bit of news: Brian McCann had a cortisone shot in his left ankle two days ago and is out of the lineup tonight, with Salty catching. But McCann’s expected back in there tomorrow, according to Bobby Cox.
This is first I’ve heard of the cortisone shot for McCann, who hates talking about his injuries for fear people will think he’s making excuses. He’s such a good dude, he feels guilty about not being in the lineup, about being hurt.
It’s the left ankle, same one he sprained badly last season. This time he reinjured it when he rolled it on a swing Tuesday, which we knew about. It’s just we didn’t know it was bad enough to require a cortisone shot, which he got Wednesday.
The ankle injury comes just when McCann’s left ring finger is finally healed completely. That’s no longer a factor, he said.
McCann and hitting coach Terry Pendleton have been working in the past few days to fix an unspecified flaw in McCann’s swing that T.P. told me about today (he wouldn’t give specifics, saying they wanted to fix it first).
Terry noticed it while watching videotape of McCann last year compared to his swing this season, and McCann immediately recognized what he was talking about when T.P. showed him.
McCann’s hitting .275 with three homers, 27 RBIs, a .328 OBP and .416 slugging percentage this season, after hitting .333 with 24 homers, 93 RBIs, a .388 OBP and .572 slugging percentage in 130 games last season as a 22-year-old All-Star.
“I got into a funk, and I’m trying to work out of it now,” McCann said. “I’m a streaky hitter. I had a couple of knick-knack injuries that affected me.
“You’re not going to hit .330 every year. Last year I was in a groove all year. This year I got hit in the finger, got into some bad habits trying to overcompensate, and now I’m trying to get back where I was before I got hit.”
More on McCann in a moment. But for now, we join our original blog already in progress, the one I wrote before I ran downstairs to the clubhouse to check on things and found out about McCann’s situation….
A four-team race, after all? If you’d have told me in March that the Braves would play a game under .500 during a 53-game stretch through June 7, I’d have told you they’d be looking a very long summer with little hope of winning the division title.
But they are 26-27 in their past 53 games, and 1-7 in their past eight home games, and guess what? The Braves are still only 3-1/2 games out of first place.
They can be thankful that the Mets’ recent slide has coincided with their own, but the Braves cannot expect things to continue as they have. In other words, they can’t keep getting beat and expect to stay less than a handful of games out of first place at the All-Star break.
For one thing, the Mets aren’t as bad as they’ve played lately. They’re banged up and they’ll get healthy. New York is a flawed team, we’ve said that all along. Their pitching isn’t nearly as good as it looked in April, and that’s starting to show.
But they still have the best lineup in the NL, and they’ll win 90 to 95 games, at least.
Secondly, there’s the not-so-small matter of the Phillies. In case anyone’s failed to notice, Philadelphia just swept the Mets after sweeping the Braves, and they’re only 1-1/2 games behind the Braves and five out of first.
And don’t completely discount the Marlins. We said in spring training that the only team that would be a non-factor in the East was Washington.
The Braves and Mets got off to fast starts, while the Phillies and Marlins struggled, and some of us made the mistake of altering our preseason predictions and starting to believe it’d be a two-team race with the Mets and Braves breaking away from the pack before mid-summer.
That’s not going to happen. It’s going to be as we thought in spring, with four teams in the division beating each other up all summer.
It’s there for the taking, the NL East title, even for a team playing as uninspired a brand of ball as the Braves are playing right now.
Chipper will be back before too long (just talked to him and he’s feeling better, hoping to be back by end of next week). McCann will get healthy and starting hit like he’s capable of hitting. Andruw will go on one of his three-week binges soon and start to push his average back to .250.
And Tim Hudson will get over this recent slippage and settle in as a solid co-ace, not the Cy Young favorite he looked like in April, but a guy who’ll win 16-18 games this season with an ERA around 3.00.
Smoltz will be Smoltz. This shoulder thing might keep him out of a start, might even land him on the DL. But he’ll make at least 32 starts this season and win at least 16 games.
And Chuck James has pitched lately like the Braves expected, not the five-inning exits he was making for the first six weeks.
The Braves still need to shore up the back two spots in the rotation, still need to figure out what they’re going to do at first base (I think Salty will start to play more vs. lefties and they’ll call up Brayan Pena as a third catcher), and still need to get more help in the ‘pen.
But believe it or not, I’ll stick by my preseason prediction. Call me crazy, but I’ll take the Braves to find a way and win the division.
Reason to believe in McCann: A bit more, as promised, on the young catcher form Duluth.
Those wondering if the Braves can expect Brian McCann to get past his ankle injury and start being the sweet-swinging power hitter he was last season, here’s one big more reason they can:
Because he did pretty much the same thing last season.
No, he never went through a low-average slump like this one, but he did have a long power outage last season after spraining the ankle and eventually going on the DL.
Check this out: McCann has hit just .242 (29-for-120) with one homer, 16 RBIs and a .290 OBP and .342 slugging percentage in 35 games since April 22.
Last season he had no homers and only four RBIs in a 24-game stretch (70 at-bats) from May 16 to July 1. Yes, he hit .357 in that span, but 22 of his 25 hits were singles.
He got his strength back in the ankle and totaled 15 doubles and 15 homers with 53 RBIs over his next 56 games starting July 2. He racked up 19 homers and 70 RBIs in his last 72 games.
This season he’s hit just one homer in 169 at-bats after homering in each of the first two games. But McCann does have 16 doubles and 27 RBIs in 50 games, while playing most of the season injured.
He’s hit a respectable .300 with three homers, 19 RBIs and a .351 and .500 slugging percentage in 28 road games.
It’s the home woes — .244 with no homers, eight RBis and a .606 OPS in 22 games - that have made his struggles seem even more pronounced to Braves fans.
That, plus the fact he isn’t hitting with runners in scoring position at like he did last season, when he led the majors in those situations with two outs.
He’s hitting .288 in 52 at-bats with RISP, including .308 (8-for-26) with two outs. Last season he hit .346 with RISP, including a majors-leading and jaw-dropping .471 (24-for-51) with two outs.
I can tell you he might never hit .471 with RISP and two outs again; that was absurdly good, and there’s a reason it led the majors by a wide margin.
One more thing about this season that’s not been mentioned regarding McCann: The proliferation of lefties the Braves have faced.
Last season the left-handed hitting McCann spent the early season in a platoon with Todd Pratt (OK, it wasn’t the greatest platoon, but McCann avoided facing lefties early on).
McCann has hit .292 with a .361 OBP and .472 slugging percentage in 106 at-bats this season vs. right-handers, and only .250 (18-for-72) with a .276 OBP and .333 slugging percentage vs. righties.
Last season McCann had only 94 at-bats vs. lefties all season, and hit .266 with a .457 slugging percentage against them, compared to his stunning .352 average and .603 slugging percentage last season against righties.
OK, is your head spinning from stat overload? Sorry, I got carried away.
Wait, more stats: But no more McCann stats. Alfonso Soriano had a triple and two RBIs last night. I know, big shocker, right? Dude absolutely rakes against Braves. In his past 25 games against them, he’s 40-for-108 (.370) with nine doubles, two triples, 11 homers, 27 RBIs and a 1.205 OPS….
— The young studs don’t want to get down two strikes. Sure, no one does. But it’s an especially precarious spot for hitters just up from the minors for the first time. Witness: Salty is 1-for-16 with two strikes, and Yunel Escobar is 1-for-10….
— Sick of Rich Hill, the lefty who stuck it to the Braves again Thursday? So are these guys: Francoeeur is 1-for-12 with seven strikeouts against him, while McCann, Salty and Scott Thorman are a combined 0-for-14 with four strikeouts. That’s 1-for-26 with 11 Ks from those young guys against the Cubs lefty.
— Saturday would be a good day for Andruw to get hot or stay hot (depending what he does tonight, after homering last night). Anyway, Braves face ex-Bravos pitcher Jason Marquis on Saturday. They’ve killed him all three times they’ve faced him since he left Atlanta, and Andruw is 7-for-10 with four home runs against Marquis. Too bad Chipper’s hurt; he’s 4-for-6 with three homers off Marquis.
— Thorman had a four-hit game April 29 at Colorado. Since then the rookie first baseman has hit .200 (24-for-100) with three homers, 14 RBIs and 29 strikeouts. Ouch. And in his last 11 games, he’s 6-for-38 (.158) with one extra-base hit (double), one RBI, 11 strikeouts and a .379 OPS (.195 OBP).
— Braves 1Bs rank last in the majors with a collective .205 average, last with a .262 OBP, last with a .347 slugging percentage, and last with 23 RBIs. No other major league team’s first basemen have an OBP below .300.
OK, that’s too much stuff. No time or room for lyrics….
No, wait. There’s always time for the main man, The Man in Black:
“FOLSOM PRISON BLUES” by Johnny Cash
I hear the train a comin’
It’s rolling round the bend
And I ain’t seen the sunshine since I don’t know when,
I’m stuck in Folsom prison, and time keeps draggin’ on
But that train keeps a rollin’ on down to San Antone.
When I was just a baby my mama told me, “Son,
Always be a good boy, don’t ever play with guns.”
But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die
When I hear that whistle blowing, I hang my head and cry.
I bet there’s rich folks eating in a fancy dining car
They’re probably drinkin’ coffee and smoking big cigars
Well I know I had it coming, I know I can’t be free
But those people keep a movin’
And that’s what tortures me.
Well if they freed me from this prison
If that railroad train was mine
I bet I’d move it on a little farther down the line
Far from Folsom prison, that’s where I want to stay
And I’d let that lonesome whistle blow my blues away.
.JPG)
-1.JPG)
Services »
