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Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Mets have “it,” and Braves do not
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This is what a championship-caliber team does: After being knocked on its butt with everyone watching, it collects itself, gets up and comes out fighting harder than before.
This is what the Mets have done: After being swept in a four-game series at Philadelphia at the end of September, and seeing its lead cut to two games over the Phillies and 4.5 games over the Braves, New York has won 9 of its past 10.
Nine of 10, including four straight games against the Braves, three in Atlanta and last night’s 3-2 series-opening win at Shea.
This is what a non-championship team does, what a pretender does: Given repeated opportunities to stay in a race, it repeatedly fails to capitalize. It loses just about every close game in the crucial stages of the season.
Oh, and when things are at a nadir, that team starts talking more about how it can’t catch a break. Sorry to say, Braves fans, but you know what I’m talking about.
David Wright is making a run at the MVP by putting his team on his back, not quite as ferociously as Chipper Jones did with the Braves in his 1999 MVP season - Hoss’ 45 homers that season included four extra-innings game-winners — but at least worthy of being in the same discussion.
Wright’s a beast, folks. What a hitter. Damn.
Meanwhile, Chipper gets hurt again, in batting practice, with less than three weeks remaining in a season that’s spiraling down the drain. He’s probably out for the rest of the series, at least, though we’ll know more shortly after the clubhouse opens this afternoon.
Want to know another huge difference between these Mets and this year’s Braves? Oliver Perez has 14 wins (four against the Braves) and a 3.42 ERA, and yet the Mets lefty might not be one of the four starters in their rotation for the first round of the playoffs. So say the folks up here in New York.
The Braves would kill to have a third starter with 14 wins and/or a 3.42 ERA.
The Mets have won nine of 10 games, and beaten the likes of Hudson (twice), Smoltz, Oswalt and Harang in that stretch.
“You couldn’t have picked a better time to peak,” Wright told reporters last night after the game. “I think this is the best baseball we’ve played all season…. We knew that after that Philadelphia series, we really had to bear down.”
The Braves knew they had to bear down before their last road trip. Then they lost six of 10. The Braves knew they really had to bear down before their last homestand. Then they lost five of nine.
They really, really knew they had to bear down on this road trip. Then they lost the opener 3-2, getting five hits including one extra-base hit.
Braves hitters had seven strikeouts and two walks in seven innings against Perez, who had issued five walks in each of his previous three starts, and issued 22 walks in 28-2/3 innings over his previous five starts.
The Braves strike out too much, don’t walk enoughm, swing for the fences in crucial situations when they should make sure they put the ball in play, and fail more often than not in situational hitting, not to mention their horrid and infrequent use of the bunt.
Other than that, and the aforementioned starting pitching shortfall, really no reason I can find for the Braves to be where they are. Uh-umm.
Braves in close games — yikes: Since Aug. 16, the Braves are 9-15 and the Mets are 15-9. The Mets have hit for a 20-point higher average in that span and posted an ERA .30 lower. Oh, and very importantly, the Mets have played well in close games. The Braves? No. Not now, and rarely this season, have they done that.
The Braves are 3-7 in their past 10 road games, and six of those losses were by one or two runs, including four one-run defeats. Their only wins in that road stretch were by scores of 7-2, 13-2 and 7-4.
That’s what these Braves do, pile up a great many of their hits and runs in games they’ve won handily.
Let’s go back to that San Francisc0-Arizona trip in mid-August, when it really started to become apparent that these Braves just lacked something needed in close games, especially on the road.
They are 9-15 on the road beginning with consecutive losses in San Francisco Aug. 16-17, and in those 24 games the Braves are 1-7 in games decided by one or two runs.
They scored at least five runs in all nine road wins in that stretch, including seven or more in seven of those wins and nine or more runs in five of them.
It’s what these Braves do.
Country in New York City? It’s like that old Pace picante sauce commercial, where the guy sees that the picante sauce someone else is offering is made in New York City, and goes “New York City?!”
That’s what it’s like listening to two hours of the best country-music radio I’ve heard since, well, ever. Better than anything I’ve heard in Nashville (much better, actually), and better than anything I’ve heard in Atlanta (far, far better).
But that’s what you get when you listen to a anti-corporate-garbage station like this listener-supported 89.1 WFDU in Teaneck, N.J., which I believe is connected to Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. It’s one thing that makes staying at a LaGuardia-area hotel tolerable, rather than in the the city (Manhattan), where you can’t even get this station on the cheap hotel-room radios.
Killer station that plays all genres of music, and has genre shows like the country block they just finished. I’m talking everything from Hank and Loretta to George Strait and David Ball, from Johnny and Hag to Josh Turner. Awesome.
”SCAR” by Joe Henry
What does this look like to you?/A mark so fine, you barely see.
You have one just like it, too/A twisting vine,/A mark so fine;
Cause I love you with all I am/And you love me because you are
As fearless as a twisting vine,/A mark so fine/But still a scar
Fear plays dumb then eats the soul/Like a vagabond with a fishing pole
He whistles but he cannot sing,/It’s an awful tune
But very soon/I find that I am whistling, too
And your window is like a star/That I sit beneath like a vagabond
Who wears his fear/Just like a scar
The blade of our outrageous fortune/Like a parade, it cuts a path,
Light shows on our foolish way/And darkness on/our aftermath;
If I love you to save myself/And you love me because we are
So fool to think that our parade/Could leave a path/But not a scar
And I love you with all I am/And you love me with what you are
As pretty as a twisting vine,/A mark so fine/But still a scar
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