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Monday, September 17, 2007
Can’t cross fingers and hope for Hampton
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
December 2004: The Braves trade for Tim Hudson and announce their intention to re-deploy closer John Smoltz as a starter. “We’re going back to the old-fashioned way,” GM John Schuerholz says, “with dominant pitching.”
September 2007: The Braves have two stellar starters, which isn’t the same as possessing dominant pitching. The Braves have been really good this year when Smoltz and Hudson start, but that’s only 40 percent of the whole. And that 40 percent has been responsible for 64 percent of this rotation’s quality starts and 55 percent of its wins.
Forget having a No. 3 starter, or even a No. 4. The 2007 Braves tried to fill out their rotation with a No. 5 (Chuck James) and bunch of No. 6s (Mark Redman, Lance Cormier, Buddy Carlyle). This season died when Mike Hampton hurt himself yet again and was buried when Kyle Davies became a nervous wreck.
For the second year running, the Braves have hit well enough to be a playoff team but won’t qualify because they haven’t pitched. For the better part of 15 years, we around here were treated to rotations where guys like Smoltz and Steve Avery and Kevin Millwood were billed as the No. 4 starter. Asked Monday if that had spoiled us, Braves and fans alike, Chipper Jones laughed and said, “Tex, why don’t you answer that?”
Standing nearby, Mark Teixeira conceded the Texas Rangers weren’t exactly four-deep in starting pitching. “We weren’t even ‘a’-deep,” he said. “When Kenny Rogers left, we lost our ace.”
The good news for the Braves going forward is that they have two aces under contract for next season. The bad news is that there’s no hot young pitcher on the order of Phil Hughes (Yankees) or Tim Lincecum (Giants) or even Mike Pelfrey (Mets) in the chain. The bad news is that the Braves could well be tempted to pencil in Mike Hampton, who hasn’t pitched since August 2005, as their No. 3 man. This should not happen. This cannot happen.
The Braves have gone too long waiting for Hampton to heal (and to justify his immense salary, which will be $15 million in 2008). If he heals and wins 15, great. But such a possibility shouldn’t prevent the team from making every effort to sign or trade for a bona fide over the winter. That, see, has been the problem. The last big-time starting pitcher the Braves acquired was Hudson.
Said Jones: “I can’t say I wouldn’t like an insurance policy. That way if Hamp doesn’t make it back, we’re covered. If he does, that makes us instant contenders.”
The plan is for Hampton to pitch somewhere over the winter. “So we’ll have an idea [going into spring training],” Bobby Cox said. But crossing your fingers isn’t a strategy. The Braves must actively pursue another arm to slot behind Smoltz and Hudson and in front of Hampton and James. (Joe Blanton of the A’s, say.) And no, arms never come cheap, but we’ve seen these last two years the cost of simply trying to make do.
“We should have a good club next year,” Cox said, but a club is only as strong as its rotation. Nobody knows that better than this organization, which rode its various rotations to 14 division titles. Said Jones: “We had it a certain way for so long, but when the names on the back of the jerseys changed, we became accustomed to a different lifestyle between the lines.”
The last two weeks of September used to be the time when Cox rested some regulars and set his rotation for the postseason. For the second year in a row, the shank of September is now an occasion for pondering what might have been. The Braves haven’t won more than three consecutive games since the weekend after the All-Star break, and that makes perfect sense.
Winning streaks are a function of rotations. This rotation was dysfunctional. It’s time to fix it.
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Falcons players know where they stand
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Flowery Branch — If nothing else, the rapidly imploding Falcons lead NFL teams in the most times having their players get punted, passed and kicked by the honest tongue of their head coach.
This is a good thing, by the way, and a refreshing one. No more Mister Mora’s Neighborhood, a fantasy land that existed for the other guy even when the Falcons were barely ordinary during the last two of his three years in town.
Now the Falcons have Petrino’s Place, and it’s a developing soap opera, but the star of the show isn’t acting when he speaks.
He’s serious. For instance: Falcons quarterback Joey Harrington is playing like somebody with a career record of 23-45 as a starter, (in other words, he is playing like a loser), and their head coach is declaring as much in public. Said Bobby Petrino on Monday at Falcons headquarters, describing Harrington’s role in the team’s pathetic 0-2 start in the NFC South, “He just needs to open it up and play with confidence. Play to go win the game.”
Of an offensive line that has allowed 13 sacks with relative ease, Petrino said many of them occurred when the Falcons had “max protection,” which is beyond absurd.
Of a running game that has digressed from leading the league in rushing the past three years to struggling so much that its longest run in Sunday’s 13-7 loss in Jacksonville was 8 yards, Petrino said the backs have to hit the holes “a little harder.” (In other words, the linemen are run blocking better than you think. Either that, or they have partners in crime.)
There are so many other examples of candor since Petrino’s hire in January, but here are several more recent ones. He chastised his placekicker after the first game, when Matt Prater went 1-for-2 in field goals along the way to 1-for-4 overall - and out the door.
He also did a rarity for a coach following the Jacksonville game by admitting that the Jaguars were successfully “attacking” overmatched Lewis Sanders at cornerback. “There’s no question about that,” added Petrino.
Now we’ll just have to wait and see whether Petrino’s blunt ways with this previously pampered bunch will push the Falcons players closer to winning or whining.
It’s a toss-up. Remember the Falcons are only months removed from the Jim Mora days, when the previous head coach was such a buddy to his players that he used to sniff ammonia caps with them on the sidelines during games. He had Snoop Dogg and DMX blaring through speakers to start practice. Then there was that time when the Falcons went as a group to see a movie. The story goes that while everybody else rode the team buses, Mora followed behind with DeAngelo Hall in the cornerback’s Lamborghini.
“It took a little while to get used to Coach Petrino, because Coach Mora was in the locker room all the time, and some people say that he was too friendly with the players,” said center Todd McClure, in his ninth year with the Falcons. “Then you go to a coach like Bobby Petrino, who comes in and cares about winning games and is all about football.”
Sounds like Dan Reeves, Mora’s predecessor, who took the Falcons on their only Super Bowl trip and turned them into the first team ever to win a playoff game in Green Bay. He was as straightforward as they come, but he spoke from decades of experience as a former NFL player and coach. In contrast, Petrino hasn’t been a head coach before at the pro level. He has been a college head coach noted for blistering players. Such a combination often has led to revolts in NFL locker rooms (see Tom Coughlin and Butch Davis).
So, courtesy of Petrino’s tongue, is it going to be winning or whining for the Falcons?
“I mean, that’s the business. It’s the honesty of it,” McClure said. “We have to get better. If you’re Coach Petrino, there’s no reason to beat around the bush. You know?”
We know. So does Petrino. Just ask him, and he’ll tell you.
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