AJC > Sports > Braves > Blog > Archives > 2007 > August > 23
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Playing .500 ball won’t get it done
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Pardon me, if I’m a little hazy in this blog. Just got in from a run.
Some fool decided to run outside because it was hot in the hotel workout room (No AC, at least I figured outside, I might catch a breeze). And you’re gonna listen to that same person try to make some sense out of the Braves current state of being?
But just for kicks, before we get to it, let’s look up the temperature in Cincy. That’s probably something I should have done before leaving on the run, but hey…. Oh for the love of goodness, gracious. It’s 97 out. Feels like 100. No wonder I feel like I’m about to pass out.
Anyway, where were we? The Braves, the .500-ish Braves. Somebody pointed out to me last night after the game that the Braves are a .500 team since late April. I looked it up, and it’s April 27 to be exact. Since then, the Braves are 53-53.
As I pointed out in my game story last night, they’re .500 since the All-Star break (19-19), .500 on the last homestand (3-3), and now hoping to get out of Cincinnati today with a 2-2 split.
(I think they have a decent shot at winning tonight, by the way, with EZ Ramirez on the mound for the Reds - he lost his first start up this year and wasn’t pitching that great in AAA. The key might be whether the Braves can score any runs against the Reds bullpen. The Braves are making it look way too good at the moment: eight shutout innings in the last two games.)
But let’s get back to the .500 thing for a second, see if we can’t have some fun. What else is there to do?
The Braves went 14-14 in May, 13-13 in July. Against everybody in the NL East other than the Mets, they are 18-18. As one of the denizens pointed out last night, they’re 10-10 with Mark Teixeira on the team now. Anybody got another one?
I had a feeling I was going to be so on with this next one, but I just missed. The Braves need to win the next two games to be .500 on games I cover them. They’re 16-18 when I’m on the clock. No wonder I appear the pessimist of this blogging space in my moments.
A team playing .500 ball down the stretch is going to have a hard time making the playoffs. Braves know that. That’s why they’ve got to do something more than hang on for the next week.
And we’ve done a pretty good job hashing through the Braves problems in these parts, thought I’d pass along some things going on around the pennant race of note from the national notes group I belong to:
From Paul Hagen of the Philadelphia Daily News:
“Nobody likes to hear teams whine about injuries, but the Phillies really have been hammered this season. The latest to go on the DL was star LHP Cole Hamels, sidelined with what is being called a “very mild” elbow strain. Assistant general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. called the results of the MRI Hamels underwent on Wednesday “good news, considering.”
Still, Hamels was unable to make his scheduled start Wednesday night against the Dodgers. And the Phillies lost, 15-3, with J.D. Durbin moving up a day to take his place in the rotation. And they had LHP Fabio Castro set to make his first major league start Thursday afternoon. So everything is relative.
Hamels became the 19th different player to see DL time this year. So, as tiresome as it is to hear, it really is kind of amazing that they were just a game out in the wild card standings (behind the Padres, who come to town this weekend) and five games behind the first-place Mets going into play Thursday.
Hamels attributed the start of his problem to throwing off a shoddy bullpen mound in Washington before a start last week.”
And also, from Hagen:
“The rotation is currently Durbin, Castro Kyle Lohse, Kyle Kendrick and veteran Jamie Moyer. Only Moyer has been in the Phillies rotation all season. RHP Adam Eaton is expected to come off the DL in time to start against the Mets next Tuesday.
Second baseman Chase Utley, who had his hand broken July 26, should be back no later than Monday, when the Phillies open an important 4-game series against the Mets at Citizens Bank Park.”
And a little something from Dan Graziano of the Newark Star-Ledger:
“Jeff Conine was pleased to be traded from a fifth-place team to a first-place team on Monday. Looking ahead to October, and expecting his new team to be playing there, Conine mused Tuesday that he’d only been to the playoffs twice - with the Marlins in 1997 and again with the Marlins in 2003 - and has won the World Series both times.
“I don’t want to mess up that streak,” he said.
Funny story. The Mets originally put Conine in Pedro Martinez’s locker, which has been empty all year while Pedro rehabs from shoulder surgery. But when (Mets PR guy) Jay Horwitz realized everybody was going to make fun of them and point this out in the papers, he scrambled and got the clubbies to move Conine to the locker that had belonged to Anderson Hernandez, who was sent down to make room for Conine.
“My stuff will probably be over on that table over there later,” Conine said, when told he’d been assigned Martinez’s locker.
Conine is the latest former Marlin to join the Mets, including Moises Alou, Carlos Delgado, Paul Lo Duca, Guillermo Mota, Luis Castillo, Ramon Castro and maybe another guy or two I’m forgetting.
“It feels like the first day of school,” Conine said. “This is like Florida Marlins Northeast. Obviously, I have a lot of experience with about a half-dozen guys, and that should make the transition easier.”
Conine has said he expects to retire at the end of this season.”
Do the Braves need to find some more Marlin re-treads? Let’s see, we’ve got Edgar Renteria and Ron Mahay. Who am I missing? Oh yeah, our own David O’Brien, former Marlin hack for the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel….Hey, maybe that’ll pull him out of his vacation and onto the blog again. Ha ha HA!
