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Monday, July 16, 2007
Complete game drought’s troubling
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Buddy Carlyle threw eight great innings yesterday and I love it — the story he’s become this season. Talk about taking absolute advantage of an opportunity he got with Atlanta, and leading up to now, taking all the bumps in the road like a man and coming back again and again and again.
But the eight innings is what really got me thinking some yesterday. Thanks in part, of course, to listening to Skip and Pete on the radio talking about how the Braves had yet to pitch a complete game this year.
That’s right. Zero. And from just looking it up, the Braves are one of only five teams in baseball without a complete game yet this season. Three of them are currently last-place teams: Washington, Kansas City, and Texas. The other is Florida. Coincidence? Not so sure.
While I was at it, I wondered if this was the longest the Braves had gone without a complete game in a season. I mean, this is a pitching rich franchise — a starting pitching rich franchise.
Thanks to Braves assistant pr man Adam Liberman and the Elias Sports Bureau, I found out that’s true: the Braves have never gone this long without a complete game. The previous long was 2003 when the Braves played 86 games before Horacio Ramirez went the distance in a 7-3 win over the Mets. (Wouldn’t have guessed Ramirez, eh? I wouldn’t have.)
Now, I trust Bobby Cox’s judgment on Carlyle yesterday. I usually see the logic in bringing in a fresh guy from the bullpen, when the starter is dragging. I think Bobby develops a trust with his starters where they’d better tell him when they’ve had enough, and on the flipside, they feel like they can.
It used to drive people nuts when Greg Maddux would come out after six innings. I learned to respect Maddux’s judgment on when he was “gassed”; and that he was doing what he thought was best for the team. Even still, at age 41, he has one more complete game this year for the Padres than the Braves do as a team.
But it still feels like something is missing, especially for a team that prides itself on pitching. And no matter how much the game has changed, it sure would be nice to see one of your horses go the distance from time to time.
Right now it’s a big deal to go eight innings. Carlyle has done it once, now, this season, Kyle Davies once (5/22 vs. Mets). John Smoltz has made it eight innings only once this year and that was April 12 in a loss to Washington.
Tim Hudson has given himself the best shot at a complete game this season. He pitched eight innings four starts in a row April 20 to May 5. He pitched the closest thing the Braves got to a complete game on April 25 at Florida but after giving up three straight hits in the ninth, he left too much work for Bob Wickman and the Braves lost.
Yes, this is the baseball wide-trend. The National League is averaging only two complete games per team. But the Braves did have six complete games last year and eight in 2005. And was it really that long ago that the Braves had 13 complete games in 2000? Well, maybe so. Maddux had six that year and Tom Glavine four, and both are past 40 and long gone from here. And the young guys around now seem the least likely sometimes to go nine innings.
Is it just me? I mean, I think Chuck James has got a better shot at participating in the late innings now as a pinch hitter than he does as a pitcher. The Braves are carrying 13 pitchers on the staff at the moment, eight of them relievers, to the do the dirty work in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings. That means James gets to hit sometimes when Cox gets low on position players. He is 0-for-2 in pinch hit at-bats this season.
The Reds, who come in today, have five complete games. I just tried to figure out exactly who had the five, and the stats page I’m looking at online doesn’t even have complete games on its main page of pitching stats. It has quality starts and WHIP and pitches per start and holds. No CGs. Though.
But a little more searching and I found the leader for the Reds is Kyle Lohse with two. Aaron Harang has one, Bronson Arroyo has one, former Braves farmhand Matt Belisle has one.
Could you repeat those names back to me, without looking back at them to check? Didn’t really think so.
I’m just sayin,’ somebody, anybody for the Braves? Let’s not get shutout in CGs for the season.
Last week I compiled a story about nine “did you know” sort of things from the first half. I found out about another cool one from Reds beat writer Hal McCoy of the Dayton Daily News and it was too late to put it in the story. So I’ll put it here.
When Ken Griffey Jr. went out to Seattle last month for his first game there since being traded to the Reds in 1999, the big homecoming with the warm reception and such? Hal says that before the game, Griffey’s old Seattle teammate Edgar Martinez told him “With your luck, you’ll probably hit two home runs and you’ll lose 3-2.” Griffey homered twice, and the Reds lost 3-2.
And did you catch the tiny little factoid that ran in the stories about the Phillies reaching 10,000 losses, the most in the history of professional sports franchises? Did you catch who’s next? The Braves. That’s right, the Boston, Milwaukee and Atlanta Braves have lost 9,681 games. Not even the Cubbies can claim such a total. They’re next in line at 9,425. Course, you play a lot of games, you have a lot of history, you’re gonna win some, gonna lose some. Let’s just hope the Braves put off five digits’ worth of losing some for a while.
