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Monday, July 9, 2007
Braves have done everything but vanish
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Somebody up there likes them. How else to explain the Braves, who have played under .500 over the past 12 1/2 weeks, finding themselves only two games back at the All-Star break? How else to explain them being within sight of a team that has outpitched and outfielded them and had, for most of the season, outhit them as well?
The Braves should be feeling good about themselves. They’ve had injuries (Mike Hampton, Lance Cormier, Mike Gonzalez, Chipper Jones) and washouts (Mark Redman, Ryan Langerhans, Craig Wilson) and no-shows (Willy Aybar) and a slump of epic proportion (you know who), and they’re one good series from leading the NL East. Were you-know-who hitting .241 instead of .211, they’d be ahead now. They’ve had a hundred things go wrong and not a lot go right, and they’re actually a bit ahead of where Bobby Cox says a team needs to be.
The Cox formula: “As long as you’re around .500 at the All-Star break, you’ve got a chance.”
In 1991 the Braves were 39-40 at the break and won the first of those 14 consecutive division titles. In 2004 they were below .500 on the Fourth of July and won their division by 10 games. These Braves were 38-38 on the morning of June 25; they’re 9-4 since. They still don’t look like a playoff team to these eyes — too many holes in the rotation and in the batting order — but honesty compels me to note that the Mets aren’t looking like one, either.
The Mets have lost 27 of their past 54 and are 14-21 since May 31. They broke for their holiday telling reporters how “lucky” they feel to be leading the East, but you have to wonder if such sentiments represent the truth. This race could have and probably should have been settled by now. Instead the Mets have allowed the Braves — and the Phillies, sort of — to hang around.
History teaches that opponents who let the Braves linger wind up kicking themselves. On cue, manager Willie Randolph has already given in to frustration at least once: He has admitted he threw a chair and broke a door in the manager’s office at Dodger Stadium last month.
His team, which looks armor-plated on paper, has sprung leaks of its own. Carlos Delgado has been nearly as bad as Andruw Jones. (Actually, Jones has more RBIs.) Hot prospect Mike Pelfrey has been worse than Kyle Davies. (Pelfrey has started eight games; he’s 0-7.) Paul Lo Duca has fewer RBIs than Scott Thorman. (And Thorman hasn’t done much.) Even the most un-Braves-like moment of the season — John Smoltz questioning Chipper Jones’ commitment — was matched by a Mets lapse. (Jose Reyes didn’t run out a grounder in Friday’s game and was pulled by Randolph.)
There is, however, a massive difference among the similarities: The Mets have the National League’s biggest payroll; the Braves rank eighth among 16 NL teams. The Braves, give or take a few games, are where they ought to be. The Mets should be much better. Give Cox that roster and that payroll and he’d be six games in front.
The Mets should still win the division, but the longer the Braves stick around the harder it will get for the New Yorkers, who must deal with the tabloids and the vacuum that will spring from the Yankees being lousy. Everyone around the Mets expects them to trade for a starting pitcher, but news that Mark Buehrle has re-upped in Chicago means they won’t be getting him, either.
Before you accuse me of egregious flip-flopping, let’s be clear: I haven’t regarded these Braves as anything special and still don’t. Barring a trade of major impact, I can’t envision them winning 90 games. But the Mets are on pace to win only 89, and that surprises me. I imagine it surprises Omar Minaya, the general manager labeled “Mix Master” by Sports Illustrated, even more.
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