AJC > Sports > Braves > Blog > Archives > 2008 > May > 07
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Braves, fans on rollercoaster ride
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Say what you will about these Bravos, but they sure aren’t boring. You folks need to restock the Rolaids yet? (Hint: this blog available for sponsorship.)
There’s been a crisis a day, more or less, from this team as it’s sputtered and surged to the best home record in baseball (12-4) and the worst road mark (4-11, same as the lowly Nationals).
While navigating an early season trail littered with sore elbows and balky shoulders (oh, and a strained pec), the Braves have somehow managed to cobble together a National League-leading 3.30 starters’ ERA (this from a team that’s had starters John Smoltz, Tom Glavine and Chuck James on the DL; oh, and Mike Hampton, who has a long-term lease on DL Street).
Of course, Braves starters have also pitched a league-low 169 innings, and that’s got the potential to really bite the Braves in the butt if they can’t get that trend reversed before the All-Star break.
Or is there someone out there who believes this injury-ravaged bullpen can continue to carry such a burden throughout the season? No, I’ll answer that one myself. It can’t happen.
We’ll probably get an update today on closer Rafael Soriano’s elbow after his MRI, but there’s little reason to believe he’s going to be back soon, or that if he is back soon, that he’ll be able to stay healthy.
Fortunately for the Braves, they’ve got Mike Gonzalez coming back in two weeks or so, and by the second half he might just be ready to close some games. They’ll also have John Smoltz moving to the bullpen, and between him and Gonzalez, the Braves could be good to go with a proven closer most nights, regardless of what happens with Soriano.
(Hey, while I’m thinking about it, I’m listening to the new Neil Diamond CD as I write this. It’s the second back-to-basics CDs of his produced by Rick Rubin, who did the great Johnny Cash’s American Recordings set in the Man in Black’s latter years.)
(I know, scores of you will deride and ridicule me for digging the sometimes-cheesy — OK, frequently cheesy — Diamond, and I’m not even going to try to argue with you about the greatness of songs like I Am … I Said, Solitary Man and Cracklin’ Rosie, because you love them or you’re wrong [kidding, folks. Well, sort of.] But I’m telling you, these two rootsy albums of his that Rubin produced are solid, the latest titled Home Before Dark that came out Tuesday.)
(While on the subject of tunes, gotta say how cool it is to have these 680 Rude Awakening guys ask me for a song to play each Wednesday when I’m on with them at 9:10 a.m. I mean, how often do you hear The Replacements’ Answering Machine or James McMurtry’s Just Us Kids or Spoon’s You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb on a sports-talk radio station? Tell me! Awesome, even if they’re only playing 20-30 seconds or so. Cool dudes.)
OK, back to the regularly scheduled blog already in progress….
But there are reasons to believe they can stabilize that rotation, even without making a trade (Frank Wren will continue making calls in case a starter becomes available, but I’d not count on anything happening on that front before July).
The reason for optimism? Well, Tim Hudson’s already gone through a rough patch and bounced back with a three-hit shutout in his last start (he usually goes through one or two rough stretches per season, and that’s about it).
And did we mention Jair Jurrjens? How’d we get this far into today’s blog without mentioning the Curacao Kid, who has been nothing short of splendid in his first April-May in the majors.
His six-inninng, one-run performance last night to beat the Padres made him 7-3 with a 3.60 ERA in the first 14 games of his career with Detroit and Atlanta. That’s special, denizens. We needn’t remind you of how the likes of Maddux, Smoltz and Glavine fared in their first year or so in the majors, do we?
I joked with Glavine in the clubhouse after last night’s game that he was this good after 14 starts, wasn’t he?
“Oh, yeah, I was dealin’ after 14 starts,” quipped Glavine, who was 2-4 with a 5.54 ERA in nine starts for Atlanta in 1987, and 7-17 with a 4.56 ERA in 34 starts in 1988.
Jurrjens has allowed just one run seven times in his 14 starts, and has a .212 opponents’ average in 75 innings. Think about that - a .212 opponents’ average, for a 22-year-old kid with far less high-level amateur baseball experience than most American pitchers who grow up playing the game.
In his past four starts, he’s 3-0 with a 2.08 ERA and .152 opponents’ average, with 14 hits (one homer), six runs, eight walks and 23 strikeouts in 26 innings. Jurrjens has pitched six or seven innings in each of those and given up one run three times in that span, while allowing hit totals of 3, 2, 2 and 7.
In three starts at Turner Field, he’s 3-0 with a 1.96 ERA, with 21 strikeouts and five walks in 18-1/3 innings. He’s had a career-high eight strikeouts in each of his past two home starts.
In fact, in his brief career he’s yet to lose a game at home. Jurrjens is 5-0 with a 3.68 ERA in eight home starts for Detroit and Atlanta, and his teams have won all eight of those games.
Speaking of Jurrjens….
Rookie of the Month: For those of you who felt Chipper Jones deserved the NL Player of the Month award in April (Chase Utley got it), here’s your chance to have a say in another monthly award.
Jurrjens is one of four finalists for the the Gillette/MLB Rookie of the Month Award for April. The others are Cubs OF Kosuke “Be Careful With My Name” Fukudome, Cubs catcher Geovany Soto and Cardinals pitcher Kyle McClellan.
This one will be decided by fan balloting. And given that his three competitors are from teams with rabid fan bases, I’d suggest you might want to pound the computers if you believe Jurrjens is deserving.
Online ballots are at www.mlb.com/gillette.
Hudson also likes home: Jurrjens isn’t the only unbeaten Braves starter at Turner this season. Hudson is 3-0 with a 1.66 ERA in three home starts, including his three-hit shutout with 10 strikeouts and no walks Friday against the Reds.
He’ll face a Padres team that hasn’t beaten him, but has battered him a bit. Hudson is 2-0 with a 4.88 ERA in five starts against San Diego, including 1-0 with a 6.32 ERA in three during 2006-07. Yes, a 6.32 ERA.
He benefited from more than nine support runs per nine innings pitched in those three games. Adrian Gonzalez is 5-for-8 with two home runs against him, and Brian Giles is 6-for-12.
His counterpart is familiar lefty Randy Wolf, who’s got a 6.06 ERA in his past three starts. Folks, things are obviously in place for the Braves to stretch their winning streak to five games, if they get a decent game from Hudson.
Wolf is 0-2 with an 8.64 ERA and .364 opponents’ average in his past six starts against Atlanta. Chipper is 13-for-40 (.325) with three homers against him, Mark Kotsay is 6-for-14 with a homer, Matt Diaz is 4-for-5, and Brian McCann has a homer and a walk in two plate appearances against the former Phillies lefty.
Hot-hitting Hoss update: He’ll cool at some point, of that we’re certain. But if Chipper keeps this up for much longer, he’ll have such a foundation that the batting title will be his to lose.
If he can just stay healthy and get enough at-bats to qualify, he’s got to be a hands-down favorite to win his first batting title year after coming so close in 2007. Imagine, his first batting title at age 36.
But anyway, here’s a few more Hoss stats: After going 1-for-2 with two walks and a two run homer last night, he’s hitting .426, 60 points higher than the majors’ next-best average, Rafael Furcal’s .366.
Chipper leads the Braves with 10 homers and 29 RBI and leads the majors with a 1.220 on base-plus-slugging percentage, ahead of Utley (1.176) and Lance Berkman (1.159).
Bill Brasky … er, Chipper leads the majors with a .500 average (29-for-58) with runners on base. He’s hitting .440 against right-handers with a ridiculous .880 slugging percentage (Berkman is next at .766 against righties).
Oh, and he has seven three-hit games; nobody else in either league has more than five.
Chipper has a .468 home average with five homers and 19 RBIs in 16 games, and he’s hit safely in all but one of those games, including 10 multi-hit games.
In his last 26 games against the Padres, dating to May 2003, he has hit .365 (35-for-96) with 11 homers, 20 RBIs and a 1.248 OPS.
The Braves are 20-6 at home since Sept. 7, and Chipper has hit .449 with eight homers and 31 RBI in those games, with 17 walks and a .517 OBP (he’s played all 26 games).
Some view it as sacrilege to suggest Chipper should come to the plate with anything but Ozzy’s “Crazy Train” playing, but here’s one that would be better suited, if you ask me (which no one has):
”COPPERHEAD ROAD” by Steve Earle
Well my name’s John Lee Pettimore
Same as my daddy and his daddy before
You hardly ever saw Grandaddy down here
He only came to town about twice a year
He’d buy a hundred pounds of yeast and some copper line
Everybody knew that he made moonshine
Now the revenue man wanted Grandaddy bad
He headed up the holler with everything he had
It’s before my time but I’ve been told
He never came back from Copperhead Road
Now Daddy ran the whiskey in a big block Dodge
Bought it at an auction at the Mason’s Lodge
Johnson County Sheriff painted on the side
Just shot a coat of primer then he looked inside
Well him and my uncle tore that engine down
I still remember that rumblin’ sound
Well the sheriff came around in the middle of the night
Heard mama cryin’, knew something wasn’t right
He was headed down to Knoxville with the weekly load
You could smell the whiskey burnin’ down Copperhead Road
I volunteered for the Army on my birthday
They draft the white trash first, ‘round here anyway
I done two tours of duty in Vietnam
And I came home with a brand new plan
I take the seed from Colombia and Mexico
I plant it up the holler down Copperhead Road
Well the D.E.A.’s got a chopper in the air
I wake up screaming like I’m back over there
I learned a thing or two from ol’ Charlie don’t you know
You better stay away from Copperhead Road
Copperhead Road…
Copperhead Road…
Copperhead Road…
Services »
