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Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Braves on good ride in land of Cowboys, Rangers
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s a new day, a new blog, and I’m cruising at 33,000 feet today instead of 34,000. You figure the Braves are flying pretty high themselves. After three wins in their last four games — and on the road — I dare say their charter flight into Dallas last night was a good one.
As Brian McCann said at the end of the 7-1 win last night in Denver “That was a good day off.” Yep, if you’re going to have to fly to a city for a one-game makeup on one of your only four scheduled off days of the month, might as well make it work for you.
So now the Braves see if they can carry over the great work of their starting staff - all five had quality starts this last time through the rotation - into Texas. Tim Hudson was waiting for the team in Dallas last night and should be rested, hopefully well-hydrated, and ready to go.
The Braves also aim to keep some of those clutch hits coming — something that started with some good work by the bottom-third of the rotation in Anaheim, and got going last night with some key hits at key times by Chipper Jones and yes, Frenchy Francoeur.
Then there was Brandon Jones, who at one point forced me to do a double-take at the scoreboard last night. The Braves have two Joneses in the lineup hitting .400.
Chipper is at .403, yes with a quite a few more at-bats, yes, but B. Jones is making quite an impression himself. He’s hitting .471 in his first five games since his call-up from Richmond. He has a four-game hitting streak, including three multi-hit games in those four, and hit his first major league home run.
Most interesting to watch in this Texas series will be how Mark Teixeira reacts to everything he’ll be dealing with, from fan reaction to media attention to Rangers pitchers buckling down against him. He said yesterday when I asked about fan reaction, “If they boo me, so be it.”
You get the idea the guy has learned how to separate what’s important and what’s not and has thick enough skin to get him through three games here. But we shall see.
“I’m not an emotional guy,” Teixeira said. “With my family, yeah, I’m emotional. Baseball, this is my job; this is a business. I work hard at it. If I play well, great. If I don’t, I’m not going to kill myself.”
He had a fairly brutal night at the plate last night, putting up the golden sombrero. It was only the fourth time in his career he had four or more strikeouts. I know he didn’t like umpire Adrian Johnson’s strike zone or the called strike three in his first at-bat. The second at-bat, he struck out swinging, probably because he figured he’d better hack or it’d be an out anyway. And things were out of whack from there.
But something tells me he’ll find a way to lock in this series. He hasn’t seemed to back down from the idea of playing there. He’s happy to be sleeping in his own bed — he makes his permanent home in Westlake — and he’s hit .302 for his career at Rangers Stadium.
“I love playing in that park,” Tex said. “I had five great years at that park. There will probably be a little extra energy in there.”
Given how much attention will be given to The trade for the next three days, I’d thought I’d give a little overview on what’s going on with each of the seven pieces of the deadline deal that brought Tex and Ron Mahay to Atlanta for Jarrod Saltalamacchia and four minor league prospects.
Here goes. And if you guys know of or find out more, feel free to chip in with whatever info you got.
TEX: We know. After driving in 56 runs in 54 games last year with the Braves, he got off to one of his traditionally slow starts. He hit only four home runs in the first six weeks of the season but has come around of late to make that 10 on the season. He’s leading the Braves in RBIs with 49 and has given Chipper the kind or protection that’s allowed him to carry a .400 average for 10 weeks.
RON MAHAY: He became a free agent at the end of last season and given what the left-hander would command on the market, the Braves watched him walk. Mahay signed a two-year $8 million deal with the Royals, where he’s playing for a last-place team, but doing well. He’s 2-0 with a 2.41 ERA in 28 appearances.
JARROD SALTALAMACCHIA: He was blocked by Brian McCann at catcher in Atlanta and got traded to a team that has him blocked in a way, too. After failing to make the team out of spring training this year, he’s now sharing time with Gerald Laird behind the plate.
The Rangers tried Salty at first base and DH some last season but decided it would be catching only for him this year. Salty has hit only .244 (21-for-86) with three homers and 14 RBIs in 25 games. Where he’s struggled the most is throwing — 22 of 24 baserunners have stolen bases on him, including 21 straight.
ELVIS ANDRUS: The Braves former No. 2 prospect and participant in last summer’s Futures Game is hitting .266 for Class AA Frisco in the Texas League. He has a .326 on-base percentage in 52 games has stolen 23 bases. The Venezuelan shortstop turns 20 in August.
MATT HARRISON: The former Braves’ third round pick was promoted to Class AAA Oklahoma earlier this month where he has gone 1-1 with a 4.74 ERA in three starts. He had gone 3-2 with a 3.33 ERA in nine starts for AA Frisco. He’s allowed two homers in 19 innings in AAA after allowing only three in 46 innings in AA and his batting average against has climbed from .263 to .307.
NEFTALI FELIZ: The 20-year-old Dominican right-hander is burning it up for the Class A Clinton LumberKings of the Midwest League. (Love the nickname). He’s 5-2 with a 2.24 ERA in 14 starts. He’s struck out 83 and walked 24 in 68-1/3 innings, while allowing only one homer.
BEAU JONES: The left-hander is 1-3 with a 4.10 ERA in seven outings for the high A Bakersfield Blaze of the California League (gotta love that nickname too). He’s got a 1.17 ERA in three relief appearances (1 ER in 7 2/3 IP) and he’s 1-3 with a 5.30 ERA in four starts.
OK, I’ve been guzzling down some Sierra Mist on the plane and dreading the Texas heat that awaits below. But I gotta love it anyway. The Big D just happens to be where I was born. Parkland Hospital. Yes that’s where JFK was taken after he got shot. A hospital that specializes in trauma and me being born. Hm.
I’m finishing this up from ground level, after my laptop battery ran out with about an hour to go, and an hour delay because of storms here. It’s not raining now and it’s clearly cooled off quite a bit. My rental car temp said it was in the 80s. That’d be nice, but I can’t imagine that it’s going to stay that way for long.
As we were coming in I got a nice glimpse of the Rangers Ballpark. Been there once before to chase down John Rocker when he was with the Rangers a few years back. This time in, I was curious to get the overhead glimpse of the new Texas Stadium going up next door. I’m assuming we’re still calling it that. I was happy to see there’s going to be a hole in the roof still - though this one retractable I think. So God can still watch the Cowboys play (Yes, I can’t help it, the Cowboys are in my blood.)
Guess God watches quite a bit of baseball, eh? OK, I’ll stop it. And get over to the ballpark and see what’s going down.
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