AJC > Sports > Braves > Blog > Archives > 2007 > August > 22
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Is it time to focus on wild card?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Look how fine a line the Braves are walking these days. Lose one game to the Reds, after winning two in a row, and they’re looking up at a six-game deficit in the NL East to the Mets with 36 games to play.
But the Braves are down only one game in the wild-card standings. Is it time to focus on that?
I don’t know. I’m asking you. Somebody else needs to do me some math. I have a hard enough time with the magic number. I was horrible at probability - ask Mrs. Caldwell, my 11th grade math teacher - permutations and combinations, etc. So in my simplistic way, until you guys throw some numbers out at me, are some of the things I’m looking at:
• The Braves have six games left to play against the Mets, and have gone 8-4 against them this year, so nothing is insurmountable yet.
• But the Mets are 7-1 in their last eight games. The Braves are 4-4. Are the Mets playing a high gear that the just might not come for the Braves? The Braves have had a stretch like that since the first game of the season when they went 7-1 against the Phillies, Mets and Nationals.
(Since then they’ve won five in a row once in May, once in June. Since the All-Star break the biggest winning run they’ve gotten on was three games in a row three times.)
• Once the Braves finish their weekend series in St. Louis, it’s back to playing in the NL East, with six games each against the Mets, Nationals, Philies and Marlins. As good as the Braves are against the Mets (8-4), they are.500 against the rest of the division (18-18). And that doesn’t bode particularly well. The only other teams left are Milwaukee and Houston, with a series each. The Braves have fared well against them, taking two of three from each.
Past history isn’t much of an indicator with this team, I don’t think, because so much seems different about this Braves team. There’s been no commanding lead, no big move in the standings, just long stretches of .500 ball and trying to figure out if this team is going to step forward as a contender or not.
But there has to be some consolation from 1993. The Braves trailed the Giants by 7 ½ games in the NL West on the morning of August 22 and won the division. As lots of folks pointed out on here yesterday, there was much better starting pitching on that team. But then again, these Mets aren’t those Giants, who won 103 games. The Mets are on pace for 92 wins.
At this point in 1994, the Braves were trailing the Expos by six games. Then the strike came that might have saved the Braves from losing their first division in four years and preventing the whole 14 in a row. Then 1995 came the wildcard and created this whole new possibility.
So what about it now? Thoughts?
Looking for reasons to feel better today? Edgar Renteria is back in the lineup. Lance Cormier looked like a much better pitcher in his last start. And the Braves, who are 23-30 against left-handed starters are due to face right-handers for the rest of this trip (Bronson Arroyo tonight, Elizardo Ramirez Thursday, Kip Wells, Joel Pineiro and Adam Wainwright in St. Louis.) They are 43-30 against right-handed starters.
Grabbing at straws? We’ll see.
Sometimes you guys ask, ‘What’s the mood in the clubhouse.” And I roll my eyes, because night-to-night that’s just not that big of a deal. They act how you would expect. Quiet. Subdued. But last night I believed it was especially intense, especially with Cox, who pulled Reyes in the third inning with the idea that the Braves would come back and win.
So to me that’s a sign that the Braves know it’s crunch time and that can’t be all bad. The intensity level goes up.
Oh and one more thing on Mark Teixeira hitting two home runs while sick on Monday. Bobby Cox said Teixeira had told him the last time he felt that way in Texas, he hit for the cycle. No wonder Cox ran him out there.
