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Thursday, August 16, 2007
If Braves make playoffs, they can win it all
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
We’ve focused on the wrong number. It doesn’t matter if the Braves catch the Mets. Going on recent history, it’d be better if they didn’t. The idea isn’t to win the NL East. The idea is to make the playoffs. In the wild-card era of baseball, that’s all it takes.
Four wild cards have won the World Series in the past decade. Only once in that span — heck, only once since 1989 — has the team holding baseball’s best record done it. Over the past seven postseasons, the playoff qualifier with the worst record has won it all twice; the team with the best hasn’t prevailed since 1998.
Because we’re conditioned to the Braves finishing first, we obsess over the division title. We shouldn’t. The number that counts isn’t 3 1/2 games, the margin of the Mets’ lead, but a single game, which represented the spread between the Padres, who carried the best record among second-place teams pending their result Thursday, and the Braves.
The Mets don’t have to fall apart for the Braves to have a chance at the World Series. The Braves have to finish ahead of only the Padres, who don’t have much hitting, and the Phillies, who don’t have much pitching, and the Rockies and Cubs and Brewers, who don’t have much history. Because at this moment, these Braves seem as good a bet as any to win 11 postseason games.
That’s provided they get there.
“Anybody could win,” said Bobby Cox, speaking of the playoffs in general, and pretty much anybody keeps doing it. The Tigers were considered dead last season after they blew the AL Central in the final weekend, and they wound up in the World Series. The Cardinals were, on the record, the second-worst playoff team in baseball history, and they reign as world champs.
This hasn’t been a classic Braves’ bunch. They’ve played a game over .500 since April 11. But they got a lot better at the trading deadline, and no other club improved half as much. There’s no reason this team as now constituted couldn’t be a postseason terror, not even the recent bullpen palpitations.
Case study: The Cardinals lost closer Jason Isringhausen in September last season. Adam Wainwright, the former Braves’ minor-leaguer groomed as a starter, saved four of those 11 postseason victories and didn’t yield a playoff run. Cometh the hour, cometh the man. If Bob Wickman and/or Rafael Soriano continue to wobble and Octavio Dotel doesn’t return, might Peter Moylan be this year’s Wainwright?
Asked if the Braves hold any doubt that they have what it takes to win in October, Jeff Francoeur said: “Absolutely not. There’s a big difference between this year’s team and last year’s. We didn’t make big moves at the trade deadline last year because I think we knew we didn’t have the team. This year we know we have the team.”
They have more professional hitters — meaning fewer flailers, Andruw Jones notwithstanding — than at any time since Fred McGriff and David Justice took their leave. They have just enough starting pitching to win 11 playoff games. Francoeur again: “We’ve got [John] Smoltz and Huddy [Tim Hudson], and that’s the 1-2 punch you need. You need power pitching in October. You need a couple of starters and a bullpen.”
At issue is whether the third, fourth and fifth starters can get this team past its 162nd game. (Thursday’s game wasn’t a promising sign, Chuck James yielding four homers in the first four innings to a Giants’ lineup missing Barry Bonds.) This writer’s belief that these Braves weren’t a playoff team was predicated on the gaps in the rotation, but rotations shorten in the postseason. If the starting pitching steadies over the next six weeks, this could be one crazy autumn.
If the Braves get in, they can win. Yes, it’s a substantial “if.”
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Vick’s fall diminishes many
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
I want to be clear about something: I take no pleasure from Michael Vick’s legal difficulties. I like Michael Vick. I’ve never had a cross word with him. I’ve been around him for six years, and I’ve seen him handle himself with surpassing grace in some difficult situations. I’ve always thought — indeed, I’ve written — that the Falcons were lucky to have a nice guy as their superstar.
I have never believed that, as a player, he was anything but a first-rate quarterback. And yes, I said a quarterback, as opposed to a glorified running back. I’ve seen him throw the ball too well too often to buy into that canard. I’ve seen him win too many games — as an NFL starter, last season was his first with a losing record, and I believe that was a function of lousy coaching — to consider himself anything but an on-field asset.
I continue to believe in his right to due process. But I also believe he has, no matter the disposition of his court case, let an awful lot of people down. Whether we like it or not, athletes are seen as heroes and role models. Whether we like it or not, athletes touch the masses in a way that, say, a poet or a physics instructor or a patrolman never can. I believe Vick’s descent from star player to celebrity defendant has diminished us all.
I get paid not to root for teams or players, but I’m a human being. And I can only imagine what Michael Vick, a human being himself, is going through right now. That was the genesis of the column I wrote Tuesday afternoon. I kept asking how it must feel to be Michael Vick not because I was trying to be funny but because I have no idea how it feels.
I know only how I feel about this whole thing. I feel really sad.
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